[Eug Wanker]

I considering giving my old Cube to my mom. However, she reads with a magnifying glass sometimes.

I see the zoom feature, but it seems rather annoying/complex to use with the keyboard shortcuts. (She's a total computer n00b.) Is there a way of getting a magnifying glass that follows the cursor around? They have this in Aperture, and I'm shocked it doesn't exist in the Universal Access settings. Is it in Leopard?

[stefanicotine]

Yuppers! Go buy a wireless Mighty Mouse. You can set a modifier + scroll ball to do exactly what you mentioned.

I don't know if Cubes have bluetooth though....

[PER3]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

I considering giving my old Cube to my mom. However, she reads with a magnifying glass sometimes.

I see the zoom feature, but it seems rather annoying/complex to use with the keyboard shortcuts. (She's a total computer n00b.) Is there a way of getting a magnifying glass that follows the cursor around? They have this in Aperture, and I'm shocked it doesn't exist in the Universal Access settings. Is it in Leopard?

How about Macnifier?

Macnifier - Enlarge portions of your screen

EDIT: No, this isn't the app I thought it was. I confused it with the magnifying box in TexShop.

[monkeybrain]

It looks like OmniDazzle: The Omni Group - Applications - OmniDazzle will let you magnify any selection, similar to what you want. But it requires a core image-compatible graphics card, does the Cube have one? I think most tools like this would use core image, for instance the zoom tool in Aperture needs core image too.

[msuper69]

Try "System Preferences/Universal Access/Zoom".

Check the Options button to see a lot of other preferences you can set.

IIRC, the Cube supports Zooming. I'll fire up my Cube 500mhz and check later today.

[tooki]

Zoom is supported on all Macs.

tooki

[Eug Wanker]

Thx guys for the suggestions...

No, my card doesn't support Core Image (or even Quartz Extreme).

Yeah, I was talking about the zoom in my first post. The problem I have with it is that it uses annoying keyboard shortcuts, at least the way I understand it. Also it zooms the entire selected region to fill the screen.

What I'd like is something that looks and works like a magnifying glass, but works with just Altivec.

I do have Bluetooth on this Cube, and I could get her a Mighty Mouse. However, I just tried it and it's the same as using the keyboard shortcut. I'd like something that functions sort of like this:



(Click to enlarge picture.)

BTW, this is a screengrab of Aperture. I can't use this magnifier anywhere else.

I suppose I could just buy her another magnifying glass.

[monkeybrain]

Does this do what you want: iPiece 1.0.1 - MacUpdate ? Not quite as cool as the aperture one, but should do the job!

[Eug Wanker]

Cool, iPiece was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!





It's a little more choppy on my ATI Rage 128 GPU, but it's good enough. It's not that much smoother on my 7600 GT actually.

Now to see if mom is interested...

[mitchell_pgh]

buy a 23" screen and set it to 800x600

[Thinine]

That's just a crime against humanity.

[Chuckit]

Coincidentally, I noticed that Apple has a sample program that does exactly this on its developer site.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Coincidentally, I noticed that Apple has a sample program that does exactly this on its developer site.

Hey cool. The price is certainly right.

It's much less jumpy than iPiece, but OTOH, it doesn't update continously, and the magnified window doesn't follow around the cursor. But nonetheless it does work quite well.

Considering this sample app is back from 2003, I'm surprised they haven't included it in OS X Tiger. Perhaps we'll see an updated version in 2007 with Leopard?

[red rocket]

If you're looking for free options, there's also Pixie (free with Apple's Developer Tools), and Pigmy, an enhanced modification thereof.