OnScreenProtractor

Precision needs to be amongst the top priorities when having to do with construction and design, or your projects are due to spell disaster. Thanks to an abundance of computer applications, you can easily create blueprints or measure distances. With this in mind, OnScreenProtractor lets you analyze projects to determine angles of custom areas.

A neat advantage is that you can run the application from any machine, since you don't need to install it. What you need to look after however, is Java Runtime Environment because it's built on this platform and it's mandatory to have it deployed on the target PC.

Truth be told, the design is pretty intuitive and provides a great deal of flexibility. Running the application brings up a fully transparent main window so every element on your desktop is visible. The way you determine angles is as easy as moving your mouse cursor inside the main window.

Stretching the edges gives you the possibility to fit the application only over the area of interest, while clicking anywhere inside the interface moves the center of axis to that spot. Mouse position is displayed in a box near the cursor, where you can also view the angle based on the axis positioning.

The overall concept is neat, but you'll have to depend on your short memory for a while, because there are no other functionality options whatsoever. On the other hand, this issue can be bypassed by taking a screenshot and it's a big disappointment you have to depend on external applications for this task.

You might notice the menu bar is fitted with a preferences entry, but don't get too excited because they only refer to a few visual aspects. In this regard, you can increase the thickness of lines, but the corresponding value can be raised until you can no longer decipher anything and since there's no reset option, it's advisable not to do so. Several color options are available for the lines.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that OnScreenProtractor comes packed with a neat concept, but overall development leaves a bit more to be desired. Sure, it provides a great deal of accuracy and you can measure anything on your desktop, but without any form of output, not even the possibility to fix the angle line in one place, practicality quickly becomes questionable.