SOFTWARE DREAMS THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS

Lens13.zip, written by Ned Konz, is a windows magnifier which works well in: MS Windows 16 and 32 bit, Amiga, and OS2. Although some aspects may not be ideal for some of the visually impaired. This 13k program can be uploaded at:

Ned Konz Shareware Freeware Download Site
http://www.gate.net/~nedkonz/shareware.html
Biondo Software Lens Download Site
http://www.bsoftware.com/cgi-bin/fetch.cgi?ProductID=33240

Lens works fine in many windows programs including text in Netscape and magnifies the area around the mouse. It also follows a text cursor for editing in many text programs, for example in this com - program text can be as large as you wish. Here is the info file:

Lens 1.03 : A Windows Magnifier (c) 1992 by Ned Konz.
This is a Windows version of an Amiga program I wrote in 1985. It was written in C++ and compiled with Zortech's C++ compiler, under OS/2 2.0. I will probably port Lens to OS/2 2.0 Presentation Manager.

Interestingly, the Windows version of Lens runs about as fast on a 25 MHz 80386 as the Amiga version did on a 7 MHz 68000. I think this is because I am using the Windows StretchBlt() call to do the magnification here, instead of my optimized magnification routine on the Amiga. Future versions of Lens for Windows will probably magnify faster using this routine.

Lens normally magnifies an area of the screen around the mouse cursor. It can additionally try to track the caret (the "text cursor") in text applications, if you enable Track Caret mode. You can try Track Caret mode with Notepad. This mode does not work with all applications. It will not work, for instance, with Word for Windows, which doesn't use the built-in Windows calls for displaying and moving the caret. Also, since it is impossible for Lens to tell whether the caret is actually being displayed, this setting may cause a lack of Lens motion when a non-text program is active. Lens will track the mouse cursor if the caret position in the active window is at the upper left hand corner (0,0), otherwise it will track the caret.

Repeat mode continues to magnify even if the cursor has not moved. This mode should be set if you wish to magnify contents of a window which are changing on its own without the mouse or the caret being moved, for example when magnifying animation. This mode may be a resource hog and slow down your system if the timerInterval setting is too short (see below).

The magnification may be changed with the Zoom In (+) and Zoom Out (-) menu choices. The available range is from 1X to 20X. You may choose to display or hide the Lens menu bar. Lens saves its settings in its initialization file when you choose "Save Settings!". This initialization file may be named as a parameter to Lens , otherwise it will default to "LENS.INI", in your Windows directory.

The "timerInterval" setting in this initialization file sets the minimum time between magnifications (in mSec). Setting it too low, especially with repeat mode ON, will cause your system to slow down.

If you feel this program has value to you, I'd really appreciate a payment of $5.00 US sent to me at:

Ned Konz
810 21st Avenue North
St. Petersburg, FL 33704-3253
(813) 821-7655
Email: nedkonz@gate.net
Home Page: http://www.gate.net/~nedkonz/
Lens Download: http://www.gate.net/~nedkonz/shareware.html

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