RFC: full-screen zoom (accessibility via ctrl-scroll)

[ybakos]

Thank you for all things sway. I know there are way more important items, especially for 1.0, but I am submitting a feature request for accessibility.

On MacOS, a "killer" accessibility feature is enabling the user to zoom the entire screen via ctrl + two-finger scroll. While there are utilities for creating "magnifying glass" surfaces that zoom in on small parts of the screen, not many window managers support this like MacOS Quartz Compositor.

It would be amazing, and a big win for folks with accessibility needs, if this were a feature in Sway.

I myself don't have the chops to implement this and submit a PR. 😭

[ddevault]

This is something I'd like to see in sway, too. However,

I myself don't have the chops to implement this and submit a PR. 

This is nonsense, anyone can learn and many people have cut their teeth on sway.

https://drewdevault.com/2017/01/06/Actually-you-CAN-do-it.html

[ybakos]

@SirCmpwn I’m glad you’re a fan of the feature. I also did not mean to sound defeatist, and I do agree about the learning. Perhaps I should have said, “I have too much crap going on to commit to this.” Which isn’t an excuse either. 🤪

[Tormen]

👍 for a screen zoom feature. This is so handy. These days lots of software comes with their own zoom... but still I was using that 1 every day or 2nd-day under KDE and under compiz before that :)

@ddevault : As this feature seems to exist in wayfire, could you have a timeboxed look if there could be any chance to re-use / port this to swaywm or better to wlroots if that's possible ?

[ddevault]

No, it wouldn't be possible to port from wayfire to wlroots.

[ibotty]

Can you give a (very broad) overview on how to tackle this issue for someone not familiar with wayland and wlroots APIs?

[tokyovigilante]

+1 from me and something I'd definitely consider implementing, as I'm a macOS refugee too and used this all the time on my MBP.

[vidister]

@nkreer and I would like to implement this as well. But we're both not familiar with wayland/wlroots and need some hints on how to do start this.

[Vaalla42]

I had a try to implement this by calling glViewport with a rect bigger that the screen, mostly worked ,but each app is zoomed independently, not the whole screen.

Another way of doing this might be to render the whole screen to a texture and then enlarge that one.

[myisaak]

Read the docs guys (@vidister hope this helps)!
wayland_client: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/apb.html
wlroots: https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/tree/master/protocol

[paolomainardi]

Any updates on this one ?

[frigaut]

Wayfire probably does that through OPENGL, which, unless I am mistaken, sway doesn't use. So I don't think implementation would be trivial. And it's a good thing that sway doesn't use OPENGL - saves your battery.

[emersion]

Sway does use OpenGL (it can also use Pixman on devices without a GPU).

[paolomainardi]

@emersion how much do you think is complex to build this feature on the current Sway codebase ? Assuming that all the needed pieces are still in place.

[paolomainardi]

It does!’t look like rocket science so far: https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/blob/224bb669836ce987a7e17fe53291bb87a7b0140d/plugins/single_plugins/zoom.cpp