My housemate just got a new PowerBook Duo 230, which she loves except for the problem of the cursor sometimes being hard to find on the supertwist (FSTN) liquid-crystal display. So I wrote a little FKEY for her.
ZoomToCursor is sort of like the homing device from a bad science-fiction movie. When you press its key combination (cmd-shift-0), it quickly draws a set of bold concentric circles of decreasing size onto the screen, centered on the cursor. The effect is a little like the way the Finder “zooms” windows open and closed, except without the Finder’s subtlety.
Because ZoomToCursor is an FKEY, you need a copy of ResEdit or Resourcerer to install it into your System file. If you are already using the cmd-shift-0 combination, you can change ZoomToCursor’s resource ID to something else (preferably between 5 and 9).
ZoomToCursor is distributed under the freeware principal. You may copy it and redistribute it freely, but you may not sell it, modify it or combine it with a commercial product. That prohibition includes distribution on CD-ROM.
If you like ZoomToCursor, send email to my housemate: rjl1@cornell.edu
or to me: dkreindl@well.sf.ca.us
CHANGES SINCE VERSION 1.0:
After using Version 1.0 of ZoomToCursor for a while, we noticed that sometimes its zooming effect appears only in the front-most window rather than on the whole screen. Version 1.0.1 of ZoomToCursor corrects this problem. If you want a techie explanation: the clipping region of the Window Manager’s GrafPort is expanded to fill its portRect before zooming, and it is restored to its original size and shape after.
This version also tracks the cursor while zooming, rather than just zooming to the spot that the cursor was at when the FKEY was invoked. (This change only really affects users who are using ZoomToCursor as a toy rather than as a cursor-locating device, but we do not want to discriminate against those users.)
CHANGE SINCE VERSION 1.0.1
Basing the un-clipping feature added in Version 1.0.1 on the Window Manager’s portRect was not wise, since it prevented users with multiple monitors from zooming on any but the main screen. Version 1.0.2 clips to the Window Manager’s visRgn instead. Thanks go to Mark Gadzikowski for reporting the problem.
