![]() They work like Photoshop guides, only better: they have a Guide ‘Wizard’ that can create a repeating grid in seconds. Guides is easily my favorite tool in xScope, and is almost indispensable when designing in the browser. Though Loupe has some fancy features, your Mac comes with a built-in magnifying glass called Pixie (in the Developer folder) which performs many of the same functions. One small but significant gripe is the fact that you can’t copy hex codes without the hash prefix, which means no direct pasting into Photoshop. aco format for use in Photoshop/Illustrator. You can also output the palette you’ve created in. xScope 3 allows you to copy any color to your palette using Cmd + Shift + C and copy values to your clipboard in your preferred format. The Loupe is a magnifying tool that displays the color values of the pixel under your cursor. XScope 3 adds more platform sizes, edge snapping, ‘safe areas’ for televisions, and a vision simulator, which approximates the appearance of your design to people with various vision impairments. Though the interface is a bit overwhelming on a small monitor, it would be very handy for designers on larger monitors who have a hard time guessing exactly where the 1280px cutoff is (like me on my work PC). The screens tool adds a viewport window to your screen that allows you to quickly see the dimensions of standard devices and preview your design as it would appear on them. While the Rulers tool is certainly very full-featured, what I’d really prefer is a simpler, less intrusive measuring tool like Photoshop’s Ruler Tool that would just let me drag a line on the screen and show me its length. xScope 3 introduces edge-snapping (hold Ctrl), which is a real time-saver when you have a lot of measurements to make, and improvements to the ruler design make it easier to use. The xScope ruler includes some fancy features you won’t find in your standard Firefox extension, however, including rotation (restrict to 45 degree increments with Shift), callipers for easily measuring objects, and position indicators to show your cursor’s distance from the origin. ![]() Rulers is just what it sounds like: a ruler on your screen. You can also now take a screenshot of the measured area using Shift + Cmd + 7. ![]() In the previous version of xScope, I found this feature to be a bit tricky to use and usually didn’t bother with it, but xScope 3 has significantly improved its performance by adding in pattern recognition, so that you can measure regions with repeating backgrounds. Dimensionsĭimensions is a handy measurement tool that recognizes elements on your screen based on pixel and pattern similarity and captures their dimensions. Since we’ve covered the basics on xScope before, I’ll focus on the improvements in the new version. If you’re not an iPhone designer, xScope still has plenty of other features to offer designers of all types. Of course, it won’t mimic Safari Mobile’s rendering, or run your app in iOS, but it’s a fantastic tool for visualizing designs and making demonstrations. XScope Mirror is an excellent tool for iPhone and mobile web designers, offering a speedy, simple solution to what is often a tricky problem. You can even lock the viewport so it won’t budge. You can change the area displayed by touching and dragging, and bring up a menu by tapping the screen. After selecting your computer, it only takes a couple seconds to make a connection and start mirroring your screen. To use Mirror, download the free iPhone app and launch it while you have xScope running on your Mac (make sure both phone and computer are on the same wi-fi network). Mirror is pretty much what it sounds like: you connect your iPhone to your Mac via wi-fi, and your iPhone will display everything on your Mac’s monitor in real time. XScope Mirror is a powerful new tool for anyone designing content to be viewed on the iPhone, from native apps to web apps and mobile websites. xScope 3 improves on all these tools, and adds one new and very exciting tool to it’s repertoire. XScope 2 included seven main tools accessed via menubar: dimensions, rulers, screens, loupe, guides, frames, and crosshair. The Iconfactory recently released xScope 3: a major update to their popular software, promising over 70 new features and improvements in interface and performance, let’s take a look at what’s new! xScope offers precision features for measuring, previewing, and organizing everything on your computer’s screen, from element dimensions to color codes in any format. Back in 2009, MacApp Storm reviewed xScope, the then-new comprehensive toolkit for designers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |