AutoHotkey Community

[Chris]

It's time this great topic got a bump. Furthermore, I've added a link to it from the script showcase. Holomind, if you'd like to edit the wording below, feel free to send me a revised version:

[Timothy]

What's the code for copying transparent windows and tooltips?

[holomind]

i guess its not easy to copy transparent windows with bitblt.
i think transparent windows are rendered by hardware and are a kind of overlay like accellerated video. it would be possible to capture this windows with directx or opengl which can access the "pixels" in the overlay.

[ivanw]

As I am rather satisfied with what I could do based on information from this thread, I thought it would be fair to share a somewhat newer version.

I have a Microsoft Mouse which activates the intelliPoint magnifier. This one is really nice as it is part of the MS driver. I recently acquired the MX "best mouse ever" from Logitech and I miss this tool I’ve come to depend on.

In an attempt to make something as close as possible, I could find the best part of what I needed to know about AutoHotkey to do something I am rather happy with... Here it is:

Features:
Has no frame, just a thin border
Follows mouse - unless you hit the spacebar to stick it in place
Scalable - scrollwheel
Resizable - shift scrollwheel

[Laszlo]

Very nice! Works perfectly.
If you want to add features:
- I'd like to change the vertical and horizontal size of the magnifier window, independently.
- I'd like to be able to anchor the magnified area, too, such that it does not follow the mouse. (If I play Internet Chess, the time display is too small. It would be nice to be able to show it 4 times magnified in the top center part of the screen, updated real time.)

[ivanw]

1. Resizing is a nice feature of the MS IntelliPoint version and it should be possible to make it work in this one with AutoHkey.
The expansion is based on dragging the mouse pointer away from the center of the magnification rectangle to expand in both width and/or height.

2. About being able to fix the center of the magnification area, you only have to allow disarming the mx, my sensing in the RePaint function after selection.

May be I'll make those improvements but, as of right now, I miss a good motivation to do so... tomorrow maybe

[majkinetor]

I get empty box!

But I see the goal, and I always wanted that ms mouse just cuz of that....
You should create separate topic for this.
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[ivanw]

majkinetor, I wanted to give credits to people who gave some of their time and effort in this topic.

I've opened a follow up from here with some back-links: ScreenMagnifier - IntelliPoint clone?

Now I don't now what can give you an empty box... As I am an emigrant from the Unix community, my contribution relies 100% on AutoHotkeys as Windows low level calls are concerned... Hopefully, someone will help in the new dedicated thread...

-ivan

[majkinetor]

well, it is probably some trivial thing...

If I find time I will look into it.

Thx for concern.
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[testzugang]

Hi,

really great stuff here

I tried to change the source to have three small magnifiers (which magnify the pixel under itself) at the same time. But it doesn't work properly... Maybe there are syntax errors (I'm quite new to ahk...) but I think it's another problem.
I hope somebody can give me a hint...

[testzugang]

I have changed some things but it still doesn't work...

Doesn't anybody know what's missing?

[ricke]

So I decided to make my own version of this one.

Amazing work Holomind !!

Cred to all that made it possible..... I have just stolen code from all over the place and put the pieces together.

Dont forget that u need:
(see http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11860 for links)
GDIplusWrapper.ahk
DllCallStruct.ahk
BinaryEncodingDecoding.ahk


I made a magnifier version mostly to be able to make very accurate screencaptures...
And I added the colorpicker so I can check and see that the cap is exactly as the original (the bmp quality setting confuses me.... use noParams now seem to work.

pics taken with this tool should be easy to relocate with imagesearch....

So features:
-Screen Capture part of screen (win+P is the hotkey)
-Magnifier of Selected area (any height and width)
(change big window fast with mouse.... use keyboard for pixelperfection)
-Dual hair cross (somewhat modified)
-colorpicker (TrayTooltip with color info about the pixel in the haircross)



Only spent a day on this one so it may contain some bugs....

known bug: added keywait on almost every "step-key" because if i let it run at full speed.... (the key repeat rate) it seem to be too fast and it hang and flickers...
it's possible to replace keywait with sleep,70 or something

So here is the code

[Tekl]

Does anyone have an idea why the magnifier is just white when using Aero in Vista? Ok, I think it's because Aero uses DirectX, but could the Magnifier be improved to support that? The system's own magnifier works also with Aero.
_________________
Tekl

[joebob]

How do I set up the Caps lock key to toggle the screen magnifier on and off?

[Icarus]

Well,

I must admit I did not read through this entire thread, but I did test some of the variants of this nice script.

No offense, but with all the beauty of a 50-line magnifier code, there seem to be a basic problem with taking this to the next level.

In all the versions I tested, the smoothness of movement (both of the window, and of its content) are nothing close to the Windows magnifier. My eyes got tired after a couple of minutes with this magnifier.

Personally, I like using a magnifier, and I was looking to develop one my own - using AHK of course - so naturally, I started to look at this thread.

Couple questions, if anyone cares to share:
1. Did anyone manage to create a version that has smooth motion in both aspects (content, and window-following-mouse)
2. Did anyone manage to do a version that supports inverse colors?
3. Did anyone manage (or have an idea about how to do it) to show the mouse cursor itself in the window (and not some crosshair)
4. (yeah, more than a couple, sorry) An extremely important feature in a magnifier (to my taste) is the ability to follow keyboard caret and focus - anyone attempted that?