General

Menu bar icons

You can configure the menu bar to show an icon for each of the xScope tools. This provides a quick and easy way to access the tool while using another application.

To add the icons, go to the General preference panel and enable the menu bar icons. You can then select any combination of tools to appear in the menu bar.

Note: The menu bar icons are designed to leave the current application in the foreground. This allows you to keep working in your development application (such as an HTML editor, web browser, or UI design tool) without having to switch applications.

When you want xScope to become the front-most application, you can click on its dock icon. This behavior can be changed with General preferences—there is an option to make xScope the front-most application whenever a tool is accessed.

Hotkeys

Use the General panel of xScope preferences to enable the global hotkeys. This allows you to access the tools from any application by pressing a key combination.

Note: Since the hotkeys are global, they may interfere with the keys used by other applications. If you encounter a conflict, use the preferences to choose another hotkey.

Running xScope without a dock icon

Normally, xScope displays with an icon in the dock. You can configure xScope to run as an application in "background mode" which will prevent the application icon from appearing in the dock.

When you run an application in background mode, you need to be aware of several limitations:

• There is no menu bar for the application. The command keys will still work, so you can quit the application (Command-Q) or display preferences (Command-Comma). In order for these keys to work, you must click on one of the tools (such as the ruler) to make sure that xScope is the frontmost application.
• xScope will not appear in the Force Quit menu when you use Command-Option-Escape. You will need to use the Activity Monitor to manually kill the xScope process.
• Since the changes required are to the application's configuration, all users on the machine must use xScope in background mode.

Before making the change to background mode, make sure that you have configured hotkeys or the menu bar icons to access the tools.

To configure xScope to run in background mode, open the application package using a control-click on the application icon and selecting "Show Package Contents". Find the Info.plist file in the Contents folder and open it with TextEdit. Locate the LSUIElement and change the "<string>0</string>" to "<string>1</string>". Save the file and return to the Contents folder.

After editing the Info.plist file, you'll need to make a copy of xScope so that the Launch Services information is update. The easiest way to do this is to select xScope in the Finder and duplicate the file (using Command-D.) Then launch the new file (xScope copy) and verify that it is not displayed in the Dock. At this point, the cache has been updated, so you can quit xScope and return to the Finder. Delete the original xScope file and rename "xScope copy" to "xScope".

If you decide you don't want to run in background mode, change the LSUIElement back to it's original value of "0".