Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

jamesbond · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 1537 Location: The Blue Marble

Ubuntu has this cool feature called enhanced zoom desktop.
Basically if you enable it, you can then press and hold the Windows key, and then use your mouse scrollwheel to zoom in and out.
User interaction while the screen is zoomed continue as per normal - one can continue to type, browse, etc.

Google said that this feature is enabled via Compiz.

Question - is there a similar, real-time zoom like described above which is window manager-agnostic? Compiz isn't the most stable window manager and not all puppy come with it ...

cheers!

ndujoe1 · Joined: 04 Dec 2005 Posts: 616

This doesn't zoom the entire desktop but I have found it useful.

Virtual Magnifier

jamesbond · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 1537 Location: The Blue Marble

Thank you joe.
Not quite what I expect (you can't interact with the system during magnification - e.g. you can't click menus, type commands etc) but it's still useful for what it does.
cheers!

jamesbond · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 1537 Location: The Blue Marble

Found this: http://sfxpt.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/panning-using-xrandr/ - scaling is done by hardware. xrandr is part of Xorg distribution, it's there in my default install of Fatdog. The only requirement is X must support version 1.3 of the xrandr extension (which Fatdog does), but I'm not sure of other puppies.

More details in http://www.x.org/archive/current/doc/man/man1/xrandr.1.xhtml.

Now we need a GUI for this Smile

disciple · Posted: Fri 05 Aug 2011, 21:05 Post subject:

Interesting. Best modify the existing xrandr guis methinks.

Lobster · Posted: Sat 06 Aug 2011, 00:15 Post subject:

Matisse (I think now defunct - though 'Looking glass' might still be about)
could zoom Windows and I had it running in Puppy. Cool

Used java.
Again not quite what you are after . . .

puppyluvr · Posted: Sat 06 Aug 2011, 01:42 Post subject:

Hello,
Thank you... Cool

I am currently running Compiz and didnt know about that function...
Talk about "zeroing in" Shocked

Very helpful for my bad eyes...

jamesbond · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 1537 Location: The Blue Marble

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

Hi Jamesbond,

your script is quality! I have a friend who is paralyzed but has some movement in his fingers. he is used to using PS3 web browser with zoom via its joypad (zoom required to see close enough). however, he wants to switch to using a computer as it will give greater flexibility.

Do you think it would be feasible to mod script to use scale, ie-
# xrandr --output VGA1 --scale 1x1
# xrandr --output VGA1 --scale 0.5x0.5
# xrandr --output VGA1 --scale 0.25x0.25

zoom out is interesting - puppy menu is stranded in the middle as windows float around.
# xrandr --output VGA1 --scale 1.2x1.2

doesn't like 0.75 but 0.7 okay

-----

edit-

panning and scale don't go well together, but you can make a wide desktop-
# xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 640x480 --panning 1024x768
# xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --panning 2048x768