Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Macintosh software/hardware discussion and troubleshooting

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MIDI Life Crisis
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Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

OK, call me simple. I've used macs for longer than I can remember (more than a week...) but still find things new and wonderful. Case in point...

OS X.4.8 has a feature that allows you to hold down the control key and the mouse wheel will zoom THE ENTIRE SCREEN right down to the cursor Using the cursor as the focus of the zoom).

Yikes! But wait! If you move the mouse while zoomed in, it will navigate around the screen ZOOMED IN - and the mouse remains fully functional once zoomed in once you release the control key! You can customize the behavior in more detail in the keyboard/mouse preferences.

Hey, do me a favor. If you find ANYTHING that cool that ishidden under the hood of the OS, please post it here. It takes me sooooo long to find these things by mistake... :)
Last edited by MIDI Life Crisis on Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by auptown »

Great discovery, and I just tried it on my Powerbook and it works with the trackpad!! Just hold down the control key use the 2-finger drag.

Who knew?
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Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

auptown wrote:Great discovery, and I just tried it on my Powerbook and it works with the trackpad!! Just hold down the control key use the 2-finger drag.

Who knew?
There is a small thread on the Apple Discussions. Considering the 100,000s on that site, you;d think a few more people would have mentioned it. Also a great find when using Finale in a large score.

My computer is fun again! :) And my AVATAR never looked so good!
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Post by James Steele »

Cool huh? I didn't find this myself till about a week ago and it happend by accident and I thought "Wow! This is cool!" Having a hard time seeing something? Boom! Blown up and mouse still functional... gotta love it.
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Post by twistedtom »

I never knew that, I can see this as something I will use alot.
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Post by Frodo »

It is a cool feature indeed.

If you have Universal Access turned on, try Apple + 'plus sign' (that's apple + shift + 'equals sign', actually). There are settings that will effect both the behavior of the mouse as well as the track pad when zoomed in. Moving the mouse can either move the screen or it can hold the screen in place while you move the mouse. It's all user programmable.

Without horizontal zoom in TO, this feature has saved my narrow behind countless times.

You know-- we should start an OSX thread. There may be a whole lot of behavioral secrets that could benefit DP users.
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Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Frodo wrote:You know-- we should start an OSX thread. There may be a whole lot of behavioral secrets that could benefit DP users.
I thought that is what I just did...
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Post by Spikey Horse »

This is not a new feature, 10.3 has it too - and it has beeen posted here several tiimes :wink:

Great for small GUIs (ahem, mach 5) and watching small QT movies without resizing etc

And if you zoom in on the spinning wheel of death with the rest of the lights switched off be prepared for a disco....
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Re: Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by Spikey Horse »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
Hey, do me a favor. If you find ANYTHING that cool that ishidden under the hood of the OS, please post it here. It takes me sooooo long to find these things by mistake... :)
OK hold on to your underpants MLC, this is gonna blow you away!

Hold down shift and double click a window top bar to send it into the dock.

Works the other way too.
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Re: Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Spikey Horse wrote:OK hold on to your underpants MLC.
You assume that I would wear such a thing! :)

Thanks. Frankly, I don't use the dock for much except programs. I wouldn't mind if it was replaced by a more flexible interface.I hide it, but sometimes it won;t come back wihtout going to the Dock menu (under the Apple).
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Re: Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by iMAS »

Spikey Horse wrote:
OK hold on to your underpants MLC, this is gonna blow you away!

Hold down shift and double click a window top bar to send it into the dock.

Works the other way too.
Am I missing something here ? Couldn't you just click on that yellow button ?
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Re: Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

iMAS wrote:
Spikey Horse wrote:
OK hold on to your underpants MLC, this is gonna blow you away!

Hold down shift and double click a window top bar to send it into the dock.

Works the other way too.
Am I missing something here ? Couldn't you just click on that yellow button ?
It is also MUCH faster to do that!
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Re: Dumb Mac (mouse) tricks... SUPER Zoom Feature!!!

Post by iMAS »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
Spikey Horse wrote:OK hold on to your underpants MLC.
You assume that I would wear such a thing! :)
If your avatar is any indication, I believe you. 8)
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Post by sdemott »

Invert the screen: ctrl-opt-cmd-8
not sure how useful this is - but its fun to do to someone else when they're not looking and then say "ohmygod I think your video card just fried".

cmd-tab - switch between open applications
shift-cmd-tab - switch in the opposite direction
-while doing this you can quit any app without switching to it by cmd-tabbing to the app's icon and then without releasing the cmd key just hit th 'q'.

opt-scroll wheel - moves bakcwards/forwards in the browser history (FireFox & Safari).

Proxy Icon fun
the Proxy Icon is the icon in the window menu bar that shows the document or folder icon.

#1: you can drag this icon to move the file - no need to switch to the finder or the folder that holds the document. I use this when attaching estimates or invoices to email all the time - drag the icon from the top of the document and drag it into my email to attach. Beats having to close windows, find the save location and then drag it in.

#2: cmd-click on the proxy icon to see the path to that file/folder. Helpful when you just hit cmd-s and saved something - but didn't pay attention to where you just saved it (c'mon admit it...we all do it)

Screen Shots
shift-cmd-3 takes a screen shot of the entire screen
shift-cmd-4 changes the pointer to a crosshair and will take a screen shot of any area you select
shift-cmd-4 then spacebar changes the pointer into a camera icon. clicking on any window will take a screen shot of just the window.

And remember - I'm not really an actor, but I play one on TV :-)
Last edited by sdemott on Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by iMAS »

sdemott wrote:Invert the screen: ctrl-opt-cmd-8
not sure how useful this is - but its fun to do to someone else when they're not looking and then say "ohmygod I think your video card just fried".
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