Browser mouse pointer location?

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I recall such a mechanism in VisProRexx (an OS/2 REXX GUI application
builder from long ago) and now that I'm tinkering with CSS I'm starting
to wonder about things like "Is that DIV one pixel offset or is it my
eyes?".

I can manage vertical/horizontal alignment by switching to the
cross-hair cursor temporarily, but even that is a little cumbersome.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

In article <47170697$1 (AT) news (DOT) greennet.net>,
Steve Swift <Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I recall such a mechanism in VisProRexx (an OS/2 REXX GUI application
builder from long ago) and now that I'm tinkering with CSS I'm starting
to wonder about things like "Is that DIV one pixel offset or is it my
eyes?".

I can manage vertical/horizontal alignment by switching to the
cross-hair cursor temporarily, but even that is a little cumbersome.

This is absolutely classical! May I use it in a little hobby
project of mine to show the wrong tendency to be concerned with
pixel perfection in web design?

--
dorayme

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:29:33 +0200, dorayme
<doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:

In article <47170697$1 (AT) news (DOT) greennet.net>,
Steve Swift <Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I recall such a mechanism in VisProRexx (an OS/2 REXX GUI application
builder from long ago) and now that I'm tinkering with CSS I'm starting
to wonder about things like "Is that DIV one pixel offset or is it my
eyes?".

I can manage vertical/horizontal alignment by switching to the
cross-hair cursor temporarily, but even that is a little cumbersome.

This is absolutely classical! May I use it in a little hobby
project of mine to show the wrong tendency to be concerned with
pixel perfection in web design?

Well, on sufficient resolutions bugs like the MSIE 3px bug are sometimes
hard to notice, and especially when it's a result of a float left of it,
one might very well think the mind plays tricks on them...

Pixel perfect should not be needed, but lining things out either
horizontally/vertically should be possible.
--
Rik Wasmus

"Rik Wasmus" <luiheidsgoeroe (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writes:

In article <47170697$1 (AT) news (DOT) greennet.net>,
Steve Swift <Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?
Pixel perfect should not be needed, but lining things out
either horizontally/vertically should be possible.

For this, use firefox + webdeveloper and
WebDeveloper=>Miscellaneous=>Display Line Guides

You can drag the line guides around, and as you do, you get
a box giving the pixel position of the guide.

--
Jón Fairbairn Jon.Fairbairn (AT) cl (DOT) cam.ac.uk

Steve Swift wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I recall such a mechanism in VisProRexx (an OS/2 REXX GUI application
builder from long ago) and now that I'm tinkering with CSS I'm starting
to wonder about things like "Is that DIV one pixel offset or is it my
eyes?".

I can manage vertical/horizontal alignment by switching to the
cross-hair cursor temporarily, but even that is a little cumbersome.

I prefer to hit Prt Scr then paste the screenshot into Macromedia
Fireworks. I can then zoom in and use the Rectangle tool to make sure
things align.

Any decent graphics application will suffice for this.

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:41:02 +0200, Jon Fairbairn
<jon.fairbairn (AT) cl (DOT) cam.ac.uk> wrote:

"Rik Wasmus" <luiheidsgoeroe (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writes:

In article <47170697$1 (AT) news (DOT) greennet.net>,
Steve Swift <Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the
absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?
Pixel perfect should not be needed, but lining things out
either horizontally/vertically should be possible.

For this, use firefox + webdeveloper and
WebDeveloper=>Miscellaneous=>Display Line Guides

You can drag the line guides around, and as you do, you get
a box giving the pixel position of the guide.

Yup, allthough I'd use the ruler. For some reason the 'Guide Lines' here
are only 1px wide, and only selectable/draggable if you click on _exactly_
that pixel, a major pain to work with. The ruler serves just as well and
is a lot easier to work with.
--
Rik Wasmus

On 17 Oct, 08:23, Steve Swift <Steve.J.Sw... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I use the Firefox extension MeasureIt for this sort of task.

As dorayme points out, most of the uses for this feature are just
wrongly intentioned. Don't ask the best way to do something like this,
ask first if you really ought to be doing it!

It's also generally more useful to have a "ruler" to measure sizes or
distances between things than it is merely to have an output of the
cursor location. You really shouldn't care about absolute positions
within the window.

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:23:33 +0100, Steve Swift
<Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html

This page needs some work. When I pressed the refresh button in
Firefox the image disappeared and all I got was a line saying "You
need images turned on to see this page" which is your alt tag. Alt
tags are used to describe what the image is, not what you need to have
turned on to see the image. Image you are visually impaired and you
are on the page and the page reader says "Alt You need images turned
on to see this page" that doesn't tell me jack about what you are
seeing on the page.

Just something to think about.

Cheers,
Colin

In article <wfk5pmw029.fsf (AT) calligramme (DOT) charmers>,
Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairbairn (AT) cl (DOT) cam.ac.uk> wrote:

"Rik Wasmus" <luiheidsgoeroe (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writes:

In article <47170697$1 (AT) news (DOT) greennet.net>,
Steve Swift <Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?
Pixel perfect should not be needed, but lining things out
either horizontally/vertically should be possible.

For this, use firefox + webdeveloper and
WebDeveloper=>Miscellaneous=>Display Line Guides

You can drag the line guides around, and as you do, you get
a box giving the pixel position of the guide.

Well, I never! Looking at this rather nifty feature (for the
first time), I wondered if it might be more useful with more
lines available so you could leave lines at convenient spots and
then noticed the Display Ruler, this looking quite sophisticated
when you drag and make grids and see info in the bar above...

--
dorayme

In article <5nm913Fg9dujU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>,
"John L." <cv (AT) edombmtech (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Steve Swift wrote:
Do any of the main browsers have a mechanism for displaying the absolute
pixel location of the mouse pointer within their display area?

I recall such a mechanism in VisProRexx (an OS/2 REXX GUI application
builder from long ago) and now that I'm tinkering with CSS I'm starting
to wonder about things like "Is that DIV one pixel offset or is it my
eyes?".

I can manage vertical/horizontal alignment by switching to the
cross-hair cursor temporarily, but even that is a little cumbersome.

I prefer to hit Prt Scr then paste the screenshot into Macromedia
Fireworks. I can then zoom in and use the Rectangle tool to make sure
things align.

O my God, you go in too...

--
dorayme