Even though my day to day has more to do with strategizing with clients, I still love to roll up my sleeves, fire up my graphics programs and code editors, and get under the hood for some good old fashioned website development. With that in mind, one of my favorite tools is Iconfactory’s xScope.
Think of xScope as a graphics Swiss army knife. It helps with all of those little jobs where there is no really good way.
- Rulers – measure horizontally and vertically and even angle the rulers on the screen.
- Dimensions – measure the inside dimensions of any element on the screen, which is great for figuring out the margins or padding of objects.
- Screens – this gives you an overlay of standard browser windows at a variety of screen resolutions, which is perfect for design mockups.
- Loupe – magnify anything on the screen which also shows you the exact color of the center pixel and gives precise coordinates for the point.
- Crosshair, Guides and Frames – vertical and horizontal tools for additional ways to measure screen areas.
If you use a Mac and do anything design related, this is a great tool to have at the ready,