Frist Impressions of GNOME 3's Zoom Feature

[Robert Cole <rkcole72984 gmail com>]

Hello, everyone.

I wrote before with some questions about screen magnification in GNOME 
3. Since then I tested GNOME 3 on a Linux Mint 12 virtual machine using 
VirtualBox with good results.

Today I finally had some time to test out a live USB Linux Mint 12 
system. I am sure that this is probably not a native setting in GNOME 3 
by default, but an extension called noa11y was enabled by default. Once 
I turned this off I set the keyboard shortcuts for the magnifier and 
gave it a run. I found it to be very smooth in a live environment. With 
or without it, GNOME 3 was very quick and responsive, except for one 
area thus far while the magnifier is running.

When I open up the Activities Overview (I am trying to get the proper 
terms for different elements down :) ) and click on the Applications 
tab, the magnifier gets very jumpy. It does not stop functioning,but it 
has a big lag when panning, and I am somewhat certain that this is 
probably due to the big number of application icons which are presented. 
When I select a category, such as Internet, the magnifier pans smoothly 
again. I am not saying this to complain as I am very happy with how well 
things just worked, and I am sure that this si something which will 
factor itself out in time.

I have been reluctant to install Linux Mint 12 on my system because I 
have little experience with GNOME 3, and (as you have probably seen in 
previous messages I have written) because I was used to the Compiz eZoom 
plugin which does not work with GNOME 3. due to the great experience I 
had today with the live USB system, I have decided to upgrade and work 
with GNOME 3 on a full installation which I am very excited about.

To everyone who is working on this project, thanks for all the work 
which you have put into it. I am also very excited about beginning to 
work with Orca a bit more in-depth.

Thanks again for everything!