There’s a new feature in the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Keyboard & Mouse’s “Mouse” System Preferences panel: “Zoom using scroll wheel.” The same feature is also available for trackpad users who have the “Use two fingers to scroll” option turned on,” John Gruber notes for Daring Fireball.
The new feature is “on” by default, with the “Zoom using scroll ball while holding” modifer key set to the “Control” key (you can change this key if you like).
(Note: Some Daring Fireball readers report seeing this feature prior to 10.4.8; apparently it shipped with the driver for the new Wireless Mighty Mouse, and perhaps also shipped in the version of 10.4.7 that shipped with some recent Macs.)
More over on Daring Fireball here.
MacDailyNews Note: Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar (released July, 2002) introduced the “Zoom” feature designed for people who need the ability to zoom in and out at will, which covers pretty much all of us. More options for other accessibility capabilities are in the “Universal Access” pane of System Preferences.
As usual:
• [Command,Option,8] toggles Zoom on and off. That’s “Apple, Option, Eight” in English.
• [Command,Option,=] zooms in, centering on the cursor position when Zoom is on. “Apple, Option, Equal Sign”
• [Command,Option,-] zooms out. “Apple, Option, Minus Sign”
Related articles:
Mac OS X lets you zoom in and out on your screen with ease – August 15, 2006
How to zoom in and out in Jaguar with ease – September 25, 2002
Awsome!
Hey, First post!
See above.
why not just Cmd Opt 8 then Cmd Opt + or Cmd Opt –
it’s long time feature, but just integrated better
Apple is too good to us. Slow down there! We can only handle so much.
These are the little things that make me love Apple.
I feel sorry watching my friends with Dells as they wrestle with their crippled Windows OS……nah not really!
This has actually been a standard feature in some software (Sibelius) for awhile. Great to see it implemented systemwide. But I wish you could tie specific keystrokes to specific magnifications like Pagemaker (RIP) used to do.
the trick also works on MacBooks .. press Ctrl and use 2 fingers on the trackpad
You can do it in 10.4.7 good news for those who didn’t know.
badass!
Have been using this for a little while since the last time MDN told us. Powerbook users can also use the Ctrl and 2 fingers on the track-pad for zooming in and out.
I accidentally came across this when I got my wireless mighty mouse. It’s awesome.
XP users accidentially discovers worms, trojans and spyware with their service pack updates.
My Core 2 Duo iMac was able to do this right out of the box. I believe it was using 10.4.6 or 10.4.7.
This isn’t anything new!!!
I discovered this feature some time ago – and yes it’s pretty cool. Altho it makes me wonder if Leopard’s rumored scalable GUI means that this function wouldn’t show large pixels – but just perfect close ups. That’s only possible with vectors.
On a sidenote, I wish that Apple could implement that 10 years old feature from Emagic (Logic Audio, now belongs to Apple) where you speed up scrolling by simply pressing the shift key. Really nice feature and I’ve never seen it elsewhere.
Evan, I remember some guy from Emagic told me about this feat. Guess what – Apple implemented it. Just press the alt. -key whilst scrolling (by pressing those tiny scroll arrows).
See? Same feature, different combo.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
That’s a pretty cool feature.
Not trying to start a flame war, but what integrated (non-third party) features does any version of Windows has that makes it more accessible to the handicapped? Just curious.
SWEET to learn about the alt key accelerating scrolling!!!
Thanks, perdita.
Very cool – my MacBook Pro didn’t do this before the 10.4.8 update – I tried after seeing someone do it on a MacBook.
This has a very different feel than the old command-option-plus approach; this way is far more fluid and visually stunning.
why not just shift+cmd+7+option+z ?
This scoll-zoom was ON, when I rebooted, with what looked like a 360x200pixel rectangle centered around my mouse. I thought it was my first bug with a point release, ever. Of course, I looked at my Prefs settings to see what had happened, and lo and behold, the scroll-zoom was ON, and my mouse settings had reverted to default, as the scrolling and mousing was slower than my normal speed.
Thanks for the tip. I use my Griffin Powermate (knob) to zoom. It’s a lot of fun, but mainly a toy. This is pretty sweet.
Very Cool!!!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
It’s the little things in life that make one smile
Do you have to have a Mighty Mouse to access this feature? I have a Logitech MX510 (best mouse I’ve ever used BTW) but I don’t see anything in the Mouse prefs to enable this.
That’s zoom not zune
JadisOne, windows has some crappy magnifying program which doesn’t magnify the whole lot but just mirrors what you’re seeing closer up in a little bar at the top of the screen. If you want to see anything in it you have to make it take up a lot of room, and then theres no room for your actual apps. Crap. Just like windows. suitable, isn’t it?
Oh and does anyone know why when my external monitor is set to a different resolution to my iBooks LCD I can’t move the cursor above about halfway up the screen? Zooming works fine if i turn the CRTs resolution down, but i like lots of real estate.
ndelc: I have a Kensington Iridio and this feature was on by default when I upped to 4.8.