Review of Screen Rulers for Mac OSX
- Price: $14.95
- Pros
- All the features are implemented cleanly.
- The ruler can be rotated to an arbitrary angle.
- Cons
- The ruler cannot be moved by arrow keys.
- The opacity cannot be changed. However, the default setting works fine except that
the ruler tick marks become invisible on top of a complete black background.
- Price: $15
- Pros
- Drag ruler: The unit and opacity can be changed on the ruler (without going through menus).
- Drag ruler: There are buttons to move the ruler for fine adjustments.
- Screen Lines: You can show and hide the lines, without losing its position.
- Screen Lines: The handle for the lines can be moved anywhere.
- Screen Lines: The distance between two lines is displayed.
- Cons
- Drag ruler: The tick marks are only on one side.
- Drag ruler cannot be rotated.
- Screen Lines: Only two guide lines are available in each direction.
- Price: $11
- Pros
- Drag ruler: Opacity can be changed on the ruler.
- Drag Ruler: There are buttons to move the ruler for fine adjustments.
- Guides: Multiple guide lines can be made.
- Guides: Distance between any pair of guide lines can be measured.
- Cons
- It quits unexpectedly.
- Drag Ruler: The movement of the ruler is not smooth.
- Drag Ruler cannot be rotated.
- Guide: You cannot hide and show guide lines. Once you delete it,
the position is lost.
- Guide: x-lines are horizontal and y-lines are vertical. What do you think you want to measure??
- Price: $9.95
- Pros
- Screen Ruler: Tick marks are on the both edges.
- Screen Guide: Multiple lines can be made, even with equal spacing.
- Cons
- Screen Ruler cannot be rotated.
- Screen Guide: You cannot HIDE the guide lines. If you remove it, you lose the position.
- Screen Guide: The distance between the lines are not shown.
- Screen Guide: The handle for moving the line and its close box are too close, and
you can accidentally lose the line.
- Screen Guide: You have to select "Screen Guide" before grabbing grid lines.
- Note: The Screen Tools have evolved into xScope, under a collaboration with iconFactory.
- Price: free
- Pros
- The ruler can be rotated to any angle.
- It looks like an old ruler made of bamboo.
- The scale can be changed.
- Cons
- When you change the size, the position moves.
- This is not made to measure in pixels. It is a feature.
- Price: $5
- Pros
- Tape measures can be pulled out to 4 directions.
- Tick marks are on the both edges.
- Cons
- You cannot put the origin to the top-left corner.
- It is slow to adjust the length of the measure.
- It cannot be rotated.
- Price: $9.95
- Pros
- You can put 0 at either edge, or at the center.
- You can move tick marks to the other side (although the
button is not so responsive).
- Cons
- The rulers do not float above other windows.
- When an external monitor is connected, the cursor arrow disappears in the external monitor.
- If an external monitor is connected, and Virtual Desktop is
used, then the cursor position in the external monitor is
completely screwed up.
- Price: Free
- Pros
- Cons
- Rulers do not float above other windows.
- Price: Free
- This is not a ruler, but it comes with a cross-hair lines showing the
position of the mouse cursor. This is useful for reading
graphs, and also checking alignments.
You can also assign a key combination to show the cross-hair, so there is no need to launch
a ruler application.
Updated 2004.1.1