Screen Ruler

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by grafio

V1.7 Jul 4, 2006 8:08:09 PM

Measure pixels on your screen.

A virtual ruler! It's a useful tool for web designers and maybe for others too Simply click the grid in two places to measure the distance between the points (in pixels). To remove the points, click again. You can create straight lines with Shift key. You have to right click this widget to close it, because it covers the whole screen.

A simpler version of the ruler is included for Linux users, because widgets on Linux have problems with transparency. It will be detected and enabled automatically if you don't use Windows or Mac.

Comments 56 posts

previous 41 - 56 of 56

Hm, it does not work. Yes, it takes a measure, but I get the whole screen blank black. Only Windows taskbar remains (sometimes).

By Jurgi , # Jul 22, 2006 7:12:19 PM

I'd love to see better Linux version too. Oh and transparency doesn't work on windows 98 as well, all I'm able to see is black background and the ruler, though it works fine.

By Ramunas , # Jul 17, 2006 11:22:56 AM

Thanks for the ideas, CrazyTerabyte. I will improve Linux version in the future.

By grafio , # Jul 14, 2006 1:35:38 PM

As a Linux user, can we rotate the ruler, to use it vertically?

Maybe add two rulers, one vertical and one horizontal.

And also it is important to be able to MOVE the ruler (ok, my window manager allows me to use alt+mouse).

Maybe even the not-linux versions could use this "simplified" interface (by an option)

Also, drawing a ruler with numbers on them might be useful.

By CrazyTerabyte , # Jul 12, 2006 10:24:02 PM

Useful! Useful!

By peewack , # Jul 12, 2006 6:10:33 PM

Nice widget. Thanks.

By ELV1S , # Jul 10, 2006 5:49:31 PM

Many thanks for the valuable tips, Benjamin Joffe!
I'll update it today.

EDIT: Done

By grafio , # Jul 8, 2006 2:09:41 PM

I like the idea. Here are a few suggestions.

- Make it not possible to drag using the CSS:

 -apple-dashboard-region: dashboard-region(control rectangle 0px 0px 0px 0px);

- It seems to be quite laggy, I assume that this is because you are using canvas and are clearing the entire rectangle instead of just the line. To clear only the line more efficiently you should stroke over it again with a wider line and use the javascript:

ctx.globalCompositeOperation="destination-out";

- Place the points using onmousedown instead of onclick to make it more responsive to the click.

By Benjamin Joffe , # Jul 8, 2006 1:55:57 PM

VERSION 1.6: Now you can use Shift key to create straight lines. Thanks to d.i.z. for this idea

By grafio , # Jul 8, 2006 9:56:03 AM

Maybe I will

But you can read "X length" and "Y length" values instead of "Distance", that's the same as it would be in a straight line.

By grafio , # Jul 7, 2006 12:00:28 AM

Can you make it to create straight lines with Shift pressed?

By d.i.z. , # Jul 6, 2006 8:24:26 PM

VERSION 1.5: Now a simpler version of the ruler is included for Linux users (widgets on Linux have problems with transparency). It will be detected and enabled automaticly if you don't use Windows or Mac.

Also I fixed the favicon

By grafio , # Jul 6, 2006 4:15:34 PM

It's really useful, thanks a lot!

By Meneldor , # Jul 5, 2006 1:10:48 PM

really cool! thnx

By seifip , # Jul 5, 2006 12:59:33 PM

Clever! Could do with some background transparency to make the boundaries of the grid more obvious, maybe?

And perhaps the X-Y co-ords could be calculated as the screen co-ords, instead of relative to the edges of the widget?

Great idea, very cleanly executed, and very, very useful!

By johnnysaucepn , # Jul 5, 2006 10:52:35 AM