need a screen magnifier

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sensu0s
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need a screen magnifier

#1 Post by sensu0s »

Hi friends.

I need a screen magnifier ( full or partial ) which not only follows the mouse but also lets us use the controls while the screen is magnified. like i should be able to to open folders, enter text fields, etc. I used qzoom for the same while using winXP. Now i am searching for a similar software for my lucid puppy 5.0.1. Can anyone help me in this regards :)

Thanks in advance.

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bigpup
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#2 Post by bigpup »


sensu0s
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#3 Post by sensu0s »

I have tried using virtual magnifying glass. It does nothing but just magnifies a portion of screen for reading. unfortunately i can't use any controls while the screen is magnified. like i cant even scroll down pages or enter text or click icons.

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#4 Post by ttuuxxx »

Maybe just use CTRL+
If you hold the ctrl key down and press the plus key it will increase the webpage size on seamonkey/Firefox and hold the CTRL and press the minus key, The screen will be smaller.
ttuuxxx
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sensu0s
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#5 Post by sensu0s »

But that will only give magnification for the browser.

How about the rest of the applications ?

Is not there an overall magnification software something like qzoom in Mac OS or windows accessibility magnifirer ?

sensu0s
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#6 Post by sensu0s »

But that will only give magnification for the browser.

How about the rest of the applications ?

Is not there an overall magnification software something like qzoom in Mac OS or windows accessibility magnifirer ?

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#7 Post by abushcrafter »

sensu0s wrote:But that will only give magnification for the browser.

How about the rest of the applications ?

Is not there an overall magnification software something like qzoom in Mac OS or windows accessibility magnifier?
There are loads: screen magnifier "linux" - Google Search
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disciple
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Puff - screen magnifier

#8 Post by disciple »

Cool. Here's the source and binary (compiled on Puppy 4.1.1 and upxed) for a tiny, antique one: puff
Read the manual, which I translated to html.

I can't quite figure out how I'm intended to run it... if I start it from a terminal, it only tracks the mouse pointer (as you say you want). But do you really want more? :)
If I then run `DISPLAY=:1` in a terminal, then launch programs from that terminal, it tracks the latest screen updates in these programs - e.g. it focuses on text as I type it in rxvt, and focuses on buttons that I press in xbomb, and no longer tracks the mouse. It seems to me like it should be able to track both at the same time - I'm guessing I need to do something like start puff after starting X, but before starting anything else (including the window manager?), then run the DISPLAY command. Can anybody figure this out?
Also, I can't launch some programs (abiword, gnumeric, xsoldier... ) from this window - they crash saying `X connection to :1.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).`. I wonder if they would work if puff was started differently?

Personally I'd prefer if the box around the area that is magnified was shown constantly, instead of just for a fraction of a second... maybe that's an idea for a budding hacker :)
I also have a feeling that things in the taskbar that update constantly (like xload) and status bars that constantly update (like in mtpaint) wouldn't play well when it is displaying screen updates rather than following the mouse pointer...
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ttuuxxx
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#9 Post by ttuuxxx »

With puff if you press the number "1" key it makes the image smaller to the point where you can make out what it is, if you press the number 2 key it will be really large.
I only played with it for a few minutes, but its still cool :)
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disciple
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#10 Post by disciple »

With puff if you press the number "1" key it makes the image smaller
Yes - 2x magnification.
if you press the number 2 key it will be really large.
Not as large as if you press 3 or 4 or 5... :)
You can also control the magnification when it starts...
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sensu0s
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#11 Post by sensu0s »

can you upload any file in .pet format.. i mean as far as i know any other files does not install on puppy automatically. Else i do not know the technical things.

I just need a simple screen magnifier which can smoothly magnify the screen, follows the mouse/text and also allow to operate the screen in the same way normally just how we operate without it.

Thanks a lot :)

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#12 Post by disciple »

Try this. It includes a menu entry and a roxapp (with right-click menu) in /usr/local/share/apps that you can put on the desktop.
If you use the menu option to connect a program to puff it starts rxvt and connects it to puff, so you can start and connect another program by running whatever command you would normally run to start it. Also if you drop a program onto the roxapp the program should be started and connected to puff... but as I noted above lots of programs these days seem to crash if you try to connect them to puff, or they just don't connect :(

So you probably just want to click it and let puff follow your mouse cursor :(
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disciple
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#13 Post by disciple »

In case anyone is bewildered: pressing number keys to change the magnification in Puff only works with the number keys in the main part of the keyboard, not on the numberpad.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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disciple
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Re: Puff - screen magnifier

#14 Post by disciple »

Good news, maybe, kind of :(
disciple wrote:I can't quite figure out how I'm intended to run it... if I start it from a terminal, it only tracks the mouse pointer (as you say you want). But do you really want more? :)
If I then run `DISPLAY=:1` in a terminal, then launch programs from that terminal, it tracks the latest screen updates in these programs - e.g. it focuses on text as I type it in rxvt, and focuses on buttons that I press in xbomb, and no longer tracks the mouse. It seems to me like it should be able to track both at the same time
Yes, I built and tested puff in Puppy 1.x (which has an older Xorg), and this works.
disciple wrote:I'm guessing I need to do something like start puff after starting X, but before starting anything else (including the window manager?), then run the DISPLAY command.
No, it seems nothing like that was required.
disciple wrote:Also, I can't launch some programs (abiword, gnumeric, xsoldier... ) from this window - they crash saying `X connection to :1.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).`. I wonder if they would work if puff was started differently?
Hmmm, I seem to recall having the same trouble starting these programs on a remote X server before... so the problem may be nothing to do with puff itself.

On Puppy 1.x I do still experience the problem that sometimes it displays the wrong part of the screen.

So... presumably as X has evolved it has slowly broken Puff, which has been unmaintained for many years. This is rather sad, as I imagine the changes required to get it working would be reasonably small... and as I can't find anything else that can track both the mouse pointer and text as you type it.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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disciple
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#15 Post by disciple »

Does anyone understand this? Is it just a quick way to change screen resolutions?
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/ssb22/setup/zoom.html
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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