Re: fullscreen magnification

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Hi Krister:

You'll need a very recent gnome-mag, version 0.11.13.  0.11.14 is a 
little better, because it allows the source display to be smaller than 
the target.  Configuring fullscreen magnification to work is a little 
tricky still.

Once you've got a recent gnome-mag, you can enable the 'dummy screen' 
which is mentioned in George Kraft's notes on magnification (the uri 
which was previously posted).  This URI has lots of info, not all of 
which is relevant for your needs.  The part you need is called "Virtual 
Screen Buffer"  / "Off Screen Configuration".
Also, there is one additional line that should go into the dummy 
"Device" section:

> Section "Device"
> 	Identifier "dummy"
> 	Driver     "dummy"
> 	VendorName "dummy"
> 	BoardName  "dummy"
>
>        videoram 10000
>
> EndSection
Once you have done this, the steps for getting a usable fullscreen login 
are a little tricky, because you now have one "display" that isn't 
connected to any physical monitor, and you can paint yourself into a corner.

The suggested XOrg.conf file (or XF86Config file should work also) puts 
the 'virtual' display on "screen 1".
The way I do it is this:

(1) start gnopernicus with the halfscreen magnification option (default 
magnification settings).
(2) from gnopernicus magnifier preferences, choose the 'default' zoomer 
and edit it to change the 'source' from ":0.0" to ":0.1".
(3) you will now need to exit gnopernicus from the unmagnified view 
(sorry).  Turning speech on may help.
(4) restart gnopernicus from the command line, but tell it to use the 
second display instead of the first:
"gnopernicus --display=:0.1"  You should now see the gnopernicus UI in 
the magnified section of your screen again.
(5) from gnopernicus magnifier preferences, choose 'default' zoomer and 
change the left bounds of the region to '0', and 'Apply'.  You should 
now have fullscreen magnification.

From this point, as long as your mouse pointer is in the right hand 
side of the screen (if so, it will be magnified), the applications you 
launch from the panel or nautilus should display in the 'virtual' screen 
and get magnified to the fullscreen window on 'screen 0'.

It is a little annoying that the mouse pointer can go back into the 
'wrong' screen if you move too far left, we are still working out the 
kinks in fullscreen magnification, so please bear with us.  In my 
experience this works pretty well up to zoom factors of about 5, but 
above that you may see some odd behavior which we are still working to fix.

It should be possible to make 'gnopernicus' launch in display :0.1 
everytime (as a startup application), if you want to do that please let 
us know and we'll try to send directions.  Until then, starting 
gnopernicus from a terminal with the "--display=0.1" parameter should do 
the trick.

If you just want mouse-centered magnification and don't need 
focus-tracking, you can get it without using gnopernicus, by running 
gnome-mag directly with the following command:

"magnifier -s:0.1 -m -f"

(-f==fullscreen; -m==keep mouse centered; -s==source display).

You can add "-z4", etc. to get higher magnification (zoom) factors, the 
default is just 2.0.

best regards,

Bill

> Hello, I need to get the fullscreen magnification to work. What do i 
> have to change in the XF86Config file? I am using Ubuntu linux.
>
> Krister
>
>
>