Magnifier built into ie7

Great for us older guys!

[cmendla]

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but there is a built in magnifier in the lower right hand side of ie7.

I just turned 48. One of my pet peeves is when people design websites with 5 or 6 point text. My guess is that is some 18 or 19 year old. When you get to my age and wear progressive lens you end up saying some nasty things about the web designer's ancestry.

Anyway, check it out, it's fast and effective.

cg

[penders]

I still only use IE7 for quick final testing - hadn't just noticed the 'magnifier in the lower right'? I do find 'magnifiers' useful for developing - getting those pixels in the right places can be tricky at times! Win XP does have a magnifier itself however... Start > Accessories > Accessibility > Magnifier (is this the same thing?)

One of my pet peeves is when people design websites with 5 or 6 point text.

Have you tried View > Text Size > Larger? I believe IE7 will now resize text that has been given a fixed px size (IE6 doesn't).

(I don't like small "because it's arty" text either.)

[cmendla]

Penders

The ie7 magnifier is not the same as the magnifier in accessories. The end result is similar but there are some differences. IE only works in ie. Magnifier works on any app. Magnifier is a bit clumsier in my opinion but it is a godsend for people with visual problems.

The thing I don't like about the View-text-larger is that when you go to the next site you have to set it back by drilling through the nav. I find the one click on ie7 to be a lot faster.

[PCInk]

And it resizes fonts defined in pixels - something IE hasn't done before and something the Text Size menu on IE 7 still doesn't do.

[pageoneresults]

The problem I see with the magnifier is that it immediately causes horizontal scroll once you increase magnification. Don't like that at all.

[penders]

The thing I don't like about the View-text-larger is that when you go to the next site you have to set it back by drilling through the nav. I find the one click on ie7 to be a lot faster.

If you have a wheel-mouse, you can hold Ctrl+wheel and alter the text-size (very handy!) in FF, IE6 and Opera8 (zoom). Having had a bit of a play... in IE7, this alters the 'zoom' (rather than just the 'text-size'). Opera just has the zoom feature, which IMO is much more accurate than IE7, and doesn't cause the horiz scroll that pageoneresults mentions. Opera's Ctrl+wheel zoom in/out is actually the opposite way round to the other browsers, but perhaps more intuitive!

I'm not sure where the Ctrl+wheel is setup... Control Panel > Mouse > Internet Options > Accessibility > Browser settings? I can't find it anywhere? Is it just an accepted shortcut in the browsers?

And it resizes fonts defined in pixels - something IE hasn't done before and something the Text Size menu on IE 7 still doesn't do.

Yeah, sorry, I had gotten mixed up with the 'zoom' feature. IE7 does not resize the "text-size" (via menu) when it's defined in px, same as IE6.