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xScope 1.0.1

Ever wonder how big a graphic is? Ever wish you could set an easy reference point on your screen? Ever worry about how your site might look in different screen resolutions? Then it sounds like you need xScope.

The xScope application icon

xScope is a tool for designers developed by ARTIS Software and the Iconfactory. It is comprised of six tools that can make a designers job easier: Rulers, Screens, Loupe, Guides, Frames and Crosshairs.

The Tools

The Rulers tool is just what it sounds like—a set of rulers on
screen which you can use to measure the length and width of any object on screen. They can be rotated and lengthened to fit just about anything, displaying the exact pixel dimensions of the object you are measuring.

Screens puts a large preview square up on screen that adjusts to common (and custom) resolution sizes, you can place it over any object to make sure that it will fit correctly on smaller resolution screens, as well as common browser window sizes.

Loupe is a magnifying tool, when activated a window appears on screen which displays a magnified view of the area around your cursor. It also displays colour information about the pixel your cursor is centred on, as well as the x,y co-ordinate of that cursor on screen. Colour information can be copied from the Loupe screen, as can the content of the Loupe window.

Guides are similar to those found in Photoshop or Illustrator, but they are for your entire display. Once placed they float on top of everything else and display their position in pixels on screen. You can save their position and load them later for easy references, and they support multiple monitor environments. There is also an easy to use wizard for placing them.

Frames are similar to guides in that they are reference markers, but instead of lines they are boxes that float on top of everything else on screen. Once placed, they display their origin, width and height for easy reference. Like guides, their positions can be saved and loaded again later, and there is a wizard for more precise creation.

The Crosshair is the last tool. As you might expect it adds a cross hair to the cursor which reports the exact on screen position in pixels. While the default is the upper left corner, the origin point
for the crosshair can be set to any point on screen.

Tools In Use

When you launch xScope you are presented with a small toolbar that can be tucked into a corner of your screen. The toolbar has 6 buttons, one for each tool, and it is semi transparent so if it does end up floating on top of another app you can still see most of what you are doing. Of the six tools that xScope includes I found three to be entirely useful and three handy to have around.

The xScope toolbar with
buttons for rulers, screens, loupe, guides, frames and
crosshair.

The three that I found myself not using very often but glad to have around when I did use them are guides, frames and rulers. In all honesty on a 1024×768 pixel screen guides and frames tended to distract me more than anything else, and I was not able to use the rulers fast enough to measure anything to warrant using them on a regular basis. That said, I use a laptop and I am sure that having a proper mouse would make the use of rulers faster, easier and that much more useful.

The Crosshair in action, with the origin point set to the upper left corner of the image

The crosshair works especially well when working with am image in photoshop or a web design in a browser. Set the origin point to the top left corner of the window and you have an easy reference for the x,y co-ordinates of the cursor. This make it easy to quickly figure out where in an image a particular object is, and where it needs to move to.

Probably the most useful tool of the 6 is the Screens tool. While it takes up a lot of screen space, the ability to check how your design is going to turn out in other resolutions is invaluable. The only down side to the screens tool is that if your screen is 1024 pixels wide or smaller, it covers almost your entire workspace and can’t be left active for any considerable length of time.

The Loupe window

The Loupe tool is my favourite of the 6 included with xScope. A magnified view of a portion of the screen lets you look at text and graphics up close, but more than that it displays the colour information of the pixel you are centred on in three different formats (RGB, HSB and HEX) and gives it’s HTML code as well. This image can be copied to the clip board with a simple key combination as can the entire contents of the window. But more than that, it’s just neat to go over your screen with a digital magnifying glass; it’s hours of entertainment for people as easily amused as I am.

Conclusions

xScope is a cool application. Though some of the tools are more useful than others all of them are handy to have around. The only caveat is that for some of the tools, the screens tool especially, need a lot of screen space to be used comfortably. All in all I’d say that ARTIS and The Iconfactory have
come up with another winner. For it’s usability and lickable interface, xScope gets an 8 out of 10.

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