Could someone kindly review the different "zooming" approaches/options?

Dorico
1

Can’t seem to quickly find this info. I know you press Z and X to zoom in and out, and you can also access different percent zooms in the lower right corner of the screen. But a few questions:

  1. I know you hit alt-Z to set a “custom zoom” level. Once I’ve set it, though, how do I actually enable it? (absurdly rudimentary question I’m sure). I do see that if I hit alt-Z after changing the “percent zoom” in the lower right, that the default “custom zoom” changes to whatever it was last set to. How is this useful? (again, I’m sure it’s obvious to others).

  2. I presumed there would be a way to assign those lower right zoom percentages to key commands, but don’t see them show up there. Is there a way to do this?

  3. I was presuming there was a way (when in “selection” vs. “hand” mode, etc.), to draw a selection box around an area I’d like to have “zoomed”, and then to have it zoom that area automatically. But how is this achieved, if so (ie. what is the magic key combination?)

  4. I’d appreciate knowing any other ways to zoom not covered above (with much thanks!)

  • D.D.
2

I have to admit I have remapped my zoom controls to be Control + and Control - (old habits die hard). When I need to zoom in and out I simply repeat pressing the plus or minus key and it moves in and out increments. Have I understood your problem correctly?

3

Thanks – I’m also wondering about other methods to zoom that I may be unaware of?
D.D.

4

When I set a Custom Zoom level, I get that zoom level as soon as I leave the dialog. If I change the zoom level and press Alt Z again, I get the current zoom level, which I can adjust as necessary. The custom level is not retained as a ‘user preset’.

AFAICT, Ctrl/Command - and = are default, so don’t need to be ‘remapped’. You can see all the Zoom commands in the View > Zoom submenu, which you can map to commands if you want. On a Mac, I can also zoom by pinching the trackpad; and scrolling while holding Command (CTRL?) also zooms.

5

Thanks. So IS there a way to select a portion of the screen when in selection mode and then have that portion zoom to fill the screen? This is so common certainly in DAWs like Logic that I hope they might consider adding it, if not (In Logic you can do this, and then also use the same key command again afterwards to immediately go back to the previous zoom level)…

I also didn’t see any way to assign a key command to (for example) 200% among the key command assignment options but might have missed it (?)
Best -
D.D.

6

No, I don’t think there’s a ‘zoom tool’ that fills the screen with a selection.
How big/small is your screen? Why do you need to zoom in on areas regularly? Perhaps there’s another way of working that avoids this.

7

There is indeed no zoom tool to zoom to a marquee selection.

The idea behind the custom zoom feature is simply to allow you to quickly zoom to any zoom level that is not included in the menu of preset zoom levels: it doesn’t create a new custom preset or anything like that.

If you’re willing to get your hands dirty and edit your keycommands_en.json file directly in /Users/your-username/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 2, you can add lines like this to the kGlobal context:

					{
						"View.Zoom?ZoomPercent=100" : [ "Meta+1" ]
					},
					{
						"View.Zoom?ZoomPercent=200" : [ "Meta+2" ]
					},
					{
						"View.Zoom?ZoomPercent=300" : [ "Meta+3" ]
					}

Hopefully it’s reasonably obvious what the syntax is here.

8

Thanks, Daniel. Fingers crossed that you will consider a “zoom to marquee selection tool” in the future (among the gazillion other feature requests I know you already have on your plate :slight_smile:)… I will also try to edit the key commands file as you suggested…
Best -
D.D.

9

Daniel: I’m afraid I’m “all thumbs” when it comes to programming so am a bit stumped by what you’re suggesting (above). For example: where precisely in that file would I paste the code? I tried various locations (the most logical one seeming to be right after where it says: "
“context” : “kGlobal”,
“shortcuts” : ["

but when I checked Key Commands, I didn’t see any new Zoom options (100, 200, 300%) to which I could assign key commands (if that was the idea you were suggesting?), and also wasn’t clear on the whole “Meta+2” thing, etc. Thanks for any further clarification!

  • D.D.
10

Sorry if I wasn’t clear about what you were supposed to do. Those lines of JSON are examples of how you could graft in definitions for shortcuts that would assign the Control key on Mac (known as Meta in Qt land) plus the numbers 1, 2, and 3 to 100%, 200% and 300% zoom respectively. If you wanted to assign something else you could replace “Meta+1” with e.g. “Ctrl+Alt+1” or whatever you want it to be.

If you have an idea for what you want the shortcuts to be and for which zoom levels, then if you attach your keycommands_en.json file from /Users/your-username/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 2 in a zip file to this thread, I’ll put them in for you myself.

11

Great info with those shortcuts, but they lack a trailing comma to work!

12

I wouldn’t call JSON very obvious. :stuck_out_tongue: YAML maybe.

13

That depends, of course, on whether or not that is the last shortcut in that particular array. I would always suggest running your hand-edited JSON file through e.g. www.jsonlint.com to see if it passes the linter there before you try using it in Dorico again.

14

Or better still, use a text editor with a proper mode for JSON that checks your syntax as you type.

15

Thanks, Daniel - I’d LOVE to take advantage of your generous offer. I’ve attached that file you requested as a zip. I’d love to set: 100% to: control-alt-command-1; 200% to control-alt-command-2; and 300% to control-alt-command-3. This will get me close enough to figure out how to further tweak the file on my own. It would also be nice (of course) at some point down the line to be able to assign key commands to more specific zoom percentages (so we could zoom in and out to specific sizes faster and more directly than by using Z and X).
keycommands_en.json.zip (565 Bytes)
Best!

  • D.D.
16

Here you go.
keycommands_en.json.zip (1.05 KB)

17

Works like a charm - much thanks!

  • D.D.