Zoom Your Netbook Desktop

This next tip isn’t just for the small screens of netbooks like the Samsung NC10. If you have a regular sized laptop or a desktop computer too, you’ll probably find this just as handy there too.

Although computer screens today are much better than they were in years gone by, sometimes it’s very handy to be able to magnify part of the screen to see things a little larger. This is easy to do using compiz.

(If you’ve been following this blog, by now you should already have compiz installed and working on your netbook. If not, we have a complete set of instructions to get you started).

Enabling The Zoom Desktop Feature

Launch ccsm (you’ll find it under the System menu, as Preferences -> CompizConfig Settings Manager). A window will open listing all of the different features of compiz:

CompizConfig Settings Manager

All of the different features are grouped by type, and the list of types can be seen on the left of the window. Click on Accessibility, and on the right hand side of the window you’ll see a bunch of features appear, including the one we are looking for

The Accessibility Group Of Settings In ccsm

Make sure that Zoom Desktop is not enabled (untick it if it is ticked). Tick Enhanced Zoom Desktop to enable it, and then click on it to open up its settings:

The Enhanced Zoom Desktop Settings In ccsm

The two settings that you need to edit are the mouse bindings for Zoom In and Zoom Out. Because I’m personally used to an Apple Mac, I have these setup to be Ctrl+Scroll Up and Ctrl+Scroll Down. (Under Linux, button 4 is the term normally used when you scroll up on your mouse’s scroll wheel, or when you use the scroll area on the right of the netbook’s trackpad).

Setting The Mouse Combination For Zooming The Desktop

Click Okay, and you should now be able to zoom into the desktop by holding down the Ctrl key and then scrolling up on the trackpad. To get the desktop back to normal, hold down the Ctrl key, and then scroll down on the track pad.

~ by Stuart on July 15, 2009.