Some aspects of designing on the computer can be rough. Figuring out how wide this is or how high that is, what something will look like at this resolution or that. Many different factors. Well, xScope is here to help you out. xScope is comprised of six tools that can make a designers job easier; Rulers, Screens, Loupe, Guides, Frames and Crosshairs:
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The Rulers tool is a set of on-screen rulers that you can use to measure the length and width of any object in pixels that is on your screen. These rulers can be adjusted to fit just about anything.
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The Screens tool puts a large preview window on your screen that adjusts to a variety of commonly used resolution sizes (as well as custom sizes). You can place this window over the object you are working on to make sure that it will fit correctly on smaller resolution screens. This tool is indespensable to the desktop picture designer. The only problem I had with this tool is that it took up most, if not all, of my desktop real estate with my 1024x768 monitor.
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The Loupe tool is an on-screen magnifying glass. When used a window appears on screen which displays a magnified view of the area around your cursor. But that's not all. It also displays color information about the pixel your cursor is centred upon. It also gives the x,y coordinate of that cursor on screen. Color information can be copied from the Loupe screen to your clipboard, as can the content of the Loupe window. The color information is given in a variety of ways (RGB, Hex, and HSB; so this is valuable to web design).
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The Guides tool is very similar to what you will find in Photoshop. Once they are placed they float on top of your screen and display their position in pixels on screen. You can save their position and load them again later for easy reference. This tool also supports multiple monitor environments.
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The Frames tool is somewhat similar to guides. The difference being is that they are boxes instead of lines that float on top of everything else on screen. These can also be saved and loaded again later. I'm still a little confused as to the significance of frames, but I'm sure with future inspection I'll grasp it more.
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The Crosshair tool adds a cross hair to your cursor. It then displays your exact pixel location.
As with all applications this has it's good and bad points. Most notably the use of desktop real estate with some of the tools. But if you are a digital designer of some sort this is the exact tool you will need to be more productive at what you do.
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