Magnifier v. 1.3

Shows and captures parts of your screen.

Developed by yyy

Original idea by lsabbagh

Released on: April 26th 2005

Compatible: Desktop Sidebar build 90 and Windows XP. Wasn't tested on previous builds and Windows versions but it might work on them too.

The panel uses code which was found in The Code Project and was written by the following:

• Agha Ali Raza
• George Mamaladze

v. 1.3 - Supports multiple monitors !!!

Version 1.2 is a small update which contains some bug fixes and enhancements.

Features of v. 1.1

• Faster & uses less resources - v. 1.1 uses a new technique which makes it work much faster than v. 1.0 and use less resources
• v. 1.1 allows you to choose the image resizing method.
• Shows an enlarged or shirnked part of your screen.
• Capture the shown image and copy it to clipboard (using Shift + Z).
• Change the zoom level using a slider or the mouse wheel. The zoom level ranges from 1-999% of the original image.
• Ability to lock/unlock the panel.
• Change the panel refresh rate.
• An option to show a marker (cross) in the center of the image.

Dear user,
thank you very much for using my panel. I hope you enjoy it. Notice that many efforts were done in order to ensure that the panel will be stable and work flawlessly. If you happen to find a bug, or if you have any suggestion, please notify me. I really appreciate any help. Feel free to distrbute the panel.

Screenshot


Enjoy !


Download

Great panel!
I have encountered a MAJOR resource leak. I tried setting the zoom level to 3% and moving my mouse a bit, and in a second the VM Size of DS jumped right up to 200 MB. The computer went real slow and I barely managed to kill DS's process.
Nice one though, and you did it fast. It's cool to put the mouse over the panel and have the infinite effect kind of thing (like putting 2 mirrors on in front of the other).

Thanks a lot GoMa I hope you enjoy the panel.

I'm aware about the "resource" problem - I made everything I could in order to make the panel work fastly without using too many resources, but when you try to capturte a 3000*3000 image every 100 miliseconds, you can't expect your computer not to use too many resources It doesn't happen when the image is zoomed in more than 30%.

I also like the effect which happen when you hover the panel Like a 3d thing

I dunno. The color picker panel isn't a resource even if you make it 1%.
Maybe a change in your code is what you need.

BTW, why did you actually develop it? What's wrong with the color picker panel?

Yes, I wonder why it happens. The color picker updates the image once in a second, not once in 100 miliseconds, and it uses a lower image quality, I think, but it is still faster. I'll try to change the code a little bit.

Just to notify everyone, it's not a resource hug - it's just refreshing too often. The panel can be set to use a low image and/or to update the image less frequently, and then it barely uses resources.

I developed it because lsabbagh requested it. It's not a competitor to the Color Picker - it's a completely another thing. It can shows the image within the whole panel and was ment ONLY for magnifying and capturing the screen.

I'm not sure that I understand this...

The Color Picker shows the image in a small box while the Magnifier panel shows the captured image inside the whole panel.
I don't think that the Color picker needs a bigger box since all it's purpose is to help the user see the color which he chooses.

BTW, do you capture the whole screen and then resize it with the Color Picker?

Yet, you can remove everything and leave only the zoom box.

If I remember correctly, I capture the whole screen.

Ok, I'm trying to find a way to do using less resources but I can't Resizing the image makes everything slower. How do oyu resize the image ?

StretchBlt.

Ok, thanks. But i've already found a good way to do it. I've removed the panel's download meanwhile, until I finish the better version.

Are you sure you'd like to release it?
One of the things that I understood is that the color picker doesn't update quickly enough.
Therefore, now I develop the option to enter the update frequency in ms (look at the color picker's thread).

EDIT: BTW, something better than StretchBlt? What is it?

hi all and special thx to triple y ,i tried to download the magnifier but no link is working

Yes- I removed the link since I found a huge "resource leak" in that version. The next version will be MUCH faster and improved. I hope to release within a few hours from now. Thanks for your interest

I don't see the problem It's a completely other type of panel. It doesn't even show color values and its purpose is different from the Color Picker.
I just resize it while I call the DrawImage method. It works so great But thanks anyway - I need to use StretchBlt for another thing

New Version is out

I've finished v. 1.1 Now the panel works much faster and uses less resources. I've added a few more features too. Find it in the 1st post

Enjoy

Hey this is pretty neat! One thing I noticed though is that it doesn't seem to recognize that there is a second monitor. I mean it magnifies everything ok on my primary monitor, but shows nothing when my mouse in on my second monitor.

Thank you vey much - enjoy the panel
Yes, it only works on the first one. Capturing the 2nd monitor will be more complicated. Maybe I'll try to do something about it in the next version/s.

Thx yyy for the wonderful effort i downloaded the magnifier and installed it but but but ........ i got 2 errors during instalation and they are attached with this reply
now im not a wizard but did i understand from these errors that i have to have java installed on my machine?????????????
if so this is bad cause microsoft is not supporting java anymore and the new xp full edition dose not include java virtual machine anyways i could be wrong help please

Oh, I know what's wrong - sorry for that Please make sure that you have the file marker.png in the location shown in the 2nd message box. If you have it and still get the error, I'll try to fix it in the next version which should be releaased later this day, I hope.

v. 1.2 is available
New version is out It's a small update which contains some bugs fixes and enhancements.

I hope I've fixed the bug which lsabbagh had. If anybody else has this bug, please make sure you have a file called marker.png where the panel is installed.

Download link is in the 1st post - Enjoy !

thx again yyy ,this version is much more stable and accurate than the previous one ,but its still not perfect this is whats happening with me

1- the cursor or marker dosent show at all and no error is given this time even if i
check or uncheck the marker box in the pannel properties
2- it works only on the main monitor not the tv or the second monitor ...my side bar is on the tv monitor i can use it to check the the lcd monitor thats all...
3- the cursor go slow as if the pc is loosing lots of resourses
4- the cpu usage is going between 95 - 100 %

Thanks. I wonder what is the problem with the marker - do you have a file called marker.png in "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Desktop Sidebar\plugins\Magnifier" ?

I know about the 2 monitors problem - there's no much I can do with this. I don't have 2 monitors and I'm running out of time... I'll be really busy soon with other things.

About the cursor - try to lock the panel before you close Desktop Sidebar so it won't do it. Sometimes it doesn't do it at all but I couldn't figure out what causes it.
Try also to set the change the zoom method to Low or Very low so less resources will be used. I've never got to 100% as far as I know.

Thanks for such a great panel.

I vote for the second monitor fix too when you get a chance.

'bird

Thanks a lot for using my panel - enjoy it I'm not sure about this 2nd monitor thing. I won't be able to test it and I have absolutely no idea how to do it.
Can somebody who uses 2 monitors try this and tell me if it works:

thx yyy ur last try for the multi monitor version worked and its great u did a great job i dont think it needs any other modifications beside lesser use of resources thx again yyy

Thanks a lot for testing it for me I thought it'll be difficult ot add this feature but then I saw an article which explained how I can do it by changing a few words in the code

I'll update the panel itself now. I hope I'll be able to make it use less resources.

i just tested your magnifier but its really slow. do you make full screenshots as bmp and then crop them ?
even at refresh rate of 1000ms and very low quality its way slow.

i use refreshrate of 50ms (20frames/s) without problems in my version.
i guess you can easily retransfer this ahk script back into c++ or VB.
its basically only calling functions of GDI32.dll

a much faster way of doing it can be found here:
http://www.holomind.de/ahk/magnifier/magnifier_smooth.exe
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=71539

AHK is free , and also the Magnifier.

basicly it copies the HDC from one window to the other for maximum speed.
there is only "no antialize" and "halftone" because this directly uses StrechBlt of GDI (windows build in).

It's been more than a year since I've released this panel and I don't have its source code anymore, but as I recall, I used StrechBlt in order to capture the whole screen and resize it. I've been using it since its release and I didn't notice any slowness.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion and for trying my panel, but I don't think I'm going to update this panel anymore.