Web site developers and web site designers often need a tool to take screen measurements. For years I used Screen Calipers v1.0 by Nico Westerdale. It was very simple to use and had a clean design:
Best of all it was free. The only downside was that there wasn’t a version for the Mac platform.
Newer releases of the tool added bells and whistles which I never thought were necessary for my needs, and the current version (4.0) is no longer free. It now supports for both the Mac and Windows, and can be rotated to any angle.
But for web design I have never needed to measure on an angle and I really liked the simplicity of the first version. So I was very happy when Gery, our Flash/Adobe Air guru created his own calipers. This is an Adobe Air version and can be installed on both a Windows and a Mac platform.
It is a very clean design and can be controlled with keystrokes or mouse:
Keyboard Shortcuts
Movement
left = nudge left
right = nudge right
up = nudge up
down = nudge down
shift + left = move right arm left
shift + right = move right arm right
Change Color
c = change left arm color
shift + c = change right arm color
Change Transparency
t = make it less transparent
shift + t = make it more transparent
Change Orientation
shift + a = change between horizontal and vertical
Mouse Usage
And of course you can always drag it around the screen and use your mouse to resize it.
move around screen = drag left arm
resize = drag right arm
One of the features I really like that the other caliper programs don’t have is the ability to adjust the transparency of the tool.
If you would like to try our caliper program you can download a zip file with both the Mac and Windows version for free.