Automatically Zoom Applications Using Terminal

While screen zoom in Leopard is really nice, Snow Leopard's screen zoom is very buggy, making it almost impossible to use. Fortunately, I have found a new form of zooming that is much more efficient, usable, and customizable. Unfortunately, this method does have some flaws, which I will get into later, and isn't nearly as on-demand as normal zoom. But, for some applications, I know that I'll need them zoomed, so this method is perfect.

With all that out of the way, let's begin.

This method of zooming essentially tells the application that you have a different screensize than you do. Don't worry, you won't have to know exactly what screen size you'll need. Instead, you'll scale the application up or down. This can be convenient for two things:

1) If your real screen size is too small for an application (e.g. Lingon.app on 800x600), you can scale the application down so that it will fit onto your screen.
2) If you can't see an application, you can scale it up so that you can.

Here are screenshots of AppleScript Editor (the worst looking application so far):



To enable this for any application you open, run the following command:

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor 2.0

The "2.0" is the scale coefficient. So, in this case, that code will scale up new applications to two times their size. Just change the 2.0 coefficient to the scale size you desire. To make applications appear smaller, use the form of "0.x".

Once you run that Terminal command, any application you open will be zoomed to the factor you specified. To disable, simply set the zoom coefficient to "1.0" and relaunch the affected applications.

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To set this for specific apps is a bit more complicated. The simplest method is probably this:

Enter "defaults domains" into a new Terminal window. This will return a comma-separated list of every domain on your Mac. Hit Cmd-F and search for the name of the application you want the domain for. The domain will look something like, "com.developer.appname". Copy this to your clipboard and run the following command replacing "app_domain" with the domain you copied. If the domain contains spaces, make sure that you single quote the domain:

defaults write 'app_domain' AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1.75

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Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's it! You should now be able to apply zoom applications on a selective basis so that you can use them on your tiny screen, or scale them up so you can use them. Either way, you win!

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