Recommendation for a 2D screen ruler

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+2 Q:

Recommendation for a 2D screen ruler

I am developing on a large monitor and would like to see, at a glance, how different parts of my application look at different screen resolutions.

I'm not interested in a utility which resizes my application or windows inside my application; I'm more interested in some sort of 2D screen overlay that can be set to different dimensions, and which I can move around the screen.

I have seen plenty of screen rulers, but I'd rather not have the hassle of measuring horizontally, then flipping the ruler, then measuring vertically. I'd just like a transparent, floating "box" that I can move around the screen so that I can tell, for example, if my dialogs are getting too tall.

+1 A:

(Warning: not necessarily the best solution.)

My quick-and-dirty way to do this was to create a desktop background with common monitor resolutions on it in different colours.

It's worked well enough. I think if a dialog box is getting really large with a ton of controls, maybe filling an 800x600 screen, it is most likely a candidate for GUI refactoring.

Jon Seigel 2009-12-10 18:10:57

I agree, simply putting up any kind of ruler won't give you the real deal because depending on your markup, the page layout will change and realign depending on the browser width.Simply resizing the browser IS the best solution.

TravisO 2009-12-10 18:52:27

That's a clever solution. That would work for me in some cases, but I'm working on an application with MDI child windows, and I need to measure their size, too. They can't break out of the app's frame, so I wouldn't be able to drag them over the desktop. A great idea, however.

Matt Dillard 2009-12-11 17:20:54

@Matt: True, this wouldn't work directly with MDI children, however, (a) if the window is always an MDI child, then the parent must always fit on the screen as well, and (b) fixed-size MDI child windows breaks the design pattern of MDI. Honestly I've never run into a situation where I needed to do this type of thing with an MDI child window.

Jon Seigel 2009-12-11 18:34:09

+1 A:

I use this one (Opera widget)

Johannes Hoff 2009-12-10 18:11:18

That's nice, thanks. Ideally I wouldn't have to install Opera, but it does seem to work pretty well.

Matt Dillard 2009-12-10 22:03:39

ansaurus

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Recommendation for a 2D screen ruler

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