[Pro] Mac screen oddity

Hi all,

This is a question to do with Mac operating system I’d guess - a very odd screen behaviour has overtaken my 24" iMac on SnowLeopard.

I have no idea whether I accidentally prompted this by some keystrokes or something, it’s never happened in all the years I’ve been using Mac…but my screen set to 1920x1200 suddenly won’t display the whole picture. It’s as though it’s zoomed in by 5%, so some of the display is hidden by the display’s frame. If you move your mouse cursor to the edge where it’s hidden then it jumps into view, but correspondingly disappears off the opposite edge. This happens in vertical and horizontal planes. Everything’s usable, but no longer is the full screen on screen!

It appears to be something to do with me as a user; if I log in as a different user (say Guest) then there is no problem at all, and the 1920x1200 displays correctly. If I log back in as admin (which is what I work in) then you can visibly see the screen take a jump towards you as it ‘zooms’ by that 5% or so.

I’m flummoxed! Anyone any clues where to look for a fix? Are there some preferences to throw away, perhaps?

cheers
Hugh


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

Hello Hugh,

Try looking at System Preferences>Accessibility and the Zoom details. Might be that. Short cut to zoom out is alt cmd -

Hope this helps,
David


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

I’m back in business… :slight_smile:

Thanks, David - it must have been a slip of the fingers sending me into alt cmd + !! Phew!

Hope the snow isn’t nipping your buds too much :wink:

regards
Hugh


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

Pleased to be of help Hugh.

I had a similar problem myself that persisted for a few months. Every time I restarted my main screen was completely unusable, incredibly high contrast with violent colours. The only solution I found that worked was to bring up the Display System Preferences and rotate the screen 180 and then back again!
Eventually I stumbled across the Accessibility pane and found a Contrast control. Bingo, problem solved. I’ve no idea how it originally manifested itself, probably like you a keystroke combination.

No snow here near Leicester, looks like you got the bulk of it though.

David


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

I don’t recall when Control + [scroll with trackpad or mouse] started zooming but that might be what caused this. Scrolling in the opposite direction will zoom you back out. It’s a pretty useful feature, actually.


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

I think I may have been in Photoshop using alt cmd + to zoom in on a photo…but might have been in the Finder by mistake, although Pshop was visible! As I didn’t have zooming turned off in prefs, I zoomed my whole screen!

The control + mousewheel is interesting, Joe, thanks for the tip!


offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options