Utilities for finding x/y screen coordinates

"Quix App is a browser bookmarklet: cross-platform, no plug-ins.

Drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar. Click. Enter the command ruler, and you get a nice cross-hairs cursor to work with, and an informative pop-up with all the coordinates."

For Macintosh, use the built-in screen capture function. Press Command-Shift-4 to take a picture of part of the screen. The cursor switches to a crosshairs cursor that includes the x/y screen coordinates. Press ESC to cancel the operation

"For Mac OS X, xScope is pretty good. Turn on the Loupe (magnify) tool to make it easier to see exactly where you are. Then use the Crosshair tool to locate the exact spot you need.

If you'd like to measure your spot from a place that is not relative to the screen origin, move the cursor to your local 0,0, then press Command-0 to set that spot as 0,0.

xScope is a commercial product from The iconfactory. The app shows up in bundles regularly. But it must be worthwhile. Heck, the latest version boasts

70+ new features"

"For Java, you can use the PointerInfo class, introduced in Java 1.5.

import java.awt.MouseInfo;
import java.awt.Point;

public class Portia {
public static void main(String args[]) throws InterruptedException {
Thread.sleep(10000); // some time for user to position mouse
Point spot = MouseInfo.getPointerInfo().getLocation();
System.out.println(
String.valueOf(spot.getX())
+"",""+
String.valueOf(spot.getY()));
}
}"

Skitch from Evernote includes an x/y coordinate display while taking a screen snap. The numbers are small and don't have any contrast layer -- so they're hard to see on a black background. Skitch is currently free.