Full screen magnifier for modern Puppy?

[jhecht]

Hi all - I have a client with really bad vision who I'd like to migrate to Puppy. I did a few searches and found old software like Puff - but I'd like to get a more modern app.

The guy needs about a 300% zoom, and it would be ideal if there was a way to switch quickly between 300% and 100% (and back) when I work on his computer, 'cause the 300% zoom drives me crazy. Am I in luck?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[mikeslr]

Hi jhecht,

Your post aroused my curiosity. I was running Tahpup at the time. So I tried its Package Manager and downloaded the xzoom deb. It ran, but seem awkward and not configurable.
But figuring a magnification app might not require that it be built for specific Puppies, I ran a Well-minded Search which revealed a couple of pets. I tried lupe008c. Worked, but also awkward and not configurable.

Magnifier-3.2.2-d, available from here, http://puppylinux.org/wikka/VirtualMagnifyingGlass not only works is configurable.

The pet installed without a hitch. It creates a menu listing, Virtual Magnifying Glass, on the Utilities SubMenu. When started magnifier places a window on the desktop magnifying whatever is beneath it. That window can be dragged any place on desktop.

Additionally, if you Left-click the magnifier, it minimizes leaving an icon on the taskbar. Right-clicking the icon brings up a set of controls. See attached.

Magnifier 3.2.2-d may not be all that your friend needs, but it may do until someone who knows how --I don't-- develops something better.

And, as I said, I just happen to be running TahrPup at the time. I have no reason to think Magnifier 3.2.2-d might not be as functional under any modern Pup.

Caveat: As it wasn't built for Tahpup, I don't know --and didn't test-- whether its installation might not have broken some other application. It certainly didn't interfere with Web-browsers or Rox.

mikesLr

[rufwoof]

Last January I was toying around with having different screen resolutions on different desktops i.e. desktop 1 running at 1024x768 and desktop 2 running at 640x480.

The code/solution I came up with seems to vary according to hardware/graphics card etc. so your mileage may vary

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=97158

my xrandr command indicates the lowest resolution of 512x384 rate 120 and changing my resLO file to contain

xrandr --output VGA2 --mode 512x384 --rate 120.0

Makes the screen real big when I switch to desktop 2

Useful to remember that holding down left ALT key and mouse clicking/dragging moves the current window below the mouse pointer i.e. on the low resolution desktop often the titlebar (minimise, close etc.) wont be visible but somewhere offscreen.

In my pup I can click/hold a window title bar and drag it to the left (or right) screen edge and it drags it over to the other desktop. Alternatively in the desktop images in the taskbar (bottom of screen) you can right mouse click/hold a window in one desktop and drag it over to the other within the taskbar desktop 'icons'.

[Geoffrey]

Hi all - I have a client with really bad vision who I'd like to migrate to Puppy. I did a few searches and found old software like Puff - but I'd like to get a more modern app.

The guy needs about a 300% zoom, and it would be ideal if there was a way to switch quickly between 300% and 100% (and back) when I work on his computer, 'cause the 300% zoom drives me crazy. Am I in luck?

Thanks in advance for your help!

XFCE 4.12 allows you to zoom and pan the screen, it is set to the size you require using Alt+Mousewheel,
moving the mouse pans the screen and it retains full functionality so it's good for those with poor sight.

All of rg66's latest X series of pups have XFCE 4.12

[mavrothal]

Here is a magnifier 3.5 pet, made from the latest linux version of magnifier.
Work on modern puppies, 32 or 64 bit.
For 64bit puppies/quirkies you'll need their 32bit compatibility sfs

[jamesbond]

I have scripted xrandr-based zoom. It works well for single monitor. Please see the script here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 917#550917. In Fatdog I have this attached to Alt-mouse scroll up and alt-mouse scroll down.

[keniv]

Magnifier-3.2.2-d.pet installed and works in lucid 5287. The 3.5 .pet will not install.

Regards,

Ken.

[mavrothal]

The 3.5 .pet will not install.

Indeed Lucid has problems handling pets generated in newer puppies.
In this case it a tar/gzip issue.
If you still want to install 3.5 open /usr/local/petget/installpkg.sh with geany and then between lines 150-170 find 2 tar instances, "tar --list -z -f" and 2 "tar -z -x ". Remove the "-z" save and try again. It should be fine (it is in mine).
But since 3.3.2 works I wouldn't bother.

[jimbo66]

I'm currently using Magnify on tahr 6.0.5 and have previously used it in Lubuntu.

I downloaded it from here:

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/#download

It doesn't create a menu entry - I put it in startup and in case I accidently close it, I have a hotkey to start it as well.

[rufwoof]

You can buy a 32 inch+ TV with VGA (HDMI) input quite inexpensively nowadays. Using that as a monitor and that alone expands fonts quite a lot.

For further amplification :

In GTK Theme there's a FONT option towards the bottom, Set that to a large font size.

Set the global font to a large dpi (Screen Font, Font Manager, Global font size).

Right click the ROX (Home) icon and ROX-Filer, Options, PinBoard, Use Custom Font and use a large font size. That's stored in
/root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Options and looks something like
<Option name="label_font">DejaVu Sans Bold 8</Option>

In FireFox, Edit, Preferences, Content - and set a large font size.

In /root/.config/Trolltech.conf change the font size from perhaps 10 (as per mine) to something larger

[Qt]
font="DejaVu Sans,10,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0"
style=GTK+

For Abiword, open /usr/share/abiword-2.8/templates/normal.awt and search for 'font' until you see its current value usually 12) and change that to perhaps 16 (default font size when open a new doc and start typing).

In /root/.Xdefaults you might want to increase the font size to perhaps something like 18 i.e.

! fonts
! run "fc-list" for a list of available fonts
urxvt.font: xft:Droid Sans Mono:style=Regular:pixelsize=18:antialias=true:hinting=true

Combined with selecting a lower screen resolution, play around with different choices until all displayed fonts are somewhat similar in size and comfortable upon the eyes.

Thereafter a change to a higher screen resolution would make the visual more comfortable for your own eyes (and revert back again to the lower res once you're done).

A useful firefox extension is ZOOM PAGE, as that adds a + and - to the main menu bar such that you can scale up/down browser text easily. The displayed number (zoom percent) between the + and - can be set so that when right clicked the scaling includes/excludes (toggle) image scaling.

Not so easy to see from the attached image just how big that looks on a 32 inch display, in practice its very big when running at 800x600. But still functional/usable. Learning to use the press/hold ALT key whilst clicking inside a window to drag it; And/or using the mini desktop window in the tray to right click/hold and drag a window around that mini desktop window (with corresponding move of the actual desktop window); And/or double clicking a windows Title bar to expand it to full screen window (or toggle it back to a smaller window); Are all relatively simple tricks to learn and handy for when using large scale text/low resolutions when often a window may be partially off-screen.