09-04-2009, 09:09 AM

Hi,

I have my Mac Mini connected to my 42" Samsung TV, which is Full HD. Since I want to utilize the HD picture quality, I set my screen to 1080p, overscan, but then the menu title bar at the top becomes very small. However, dock and icons are no problem because there is a zoom function there, but I can´t find the way to make the menu title bar bigger. Of course, I can hold down the Ctrl key and use the scroll button on the mouse, but it´s not very convenient to do that all the time. So, I hope someone has a solution to my problem?

Thanks!
Tor

09-04-2009, 09:11 AM

The only solution would be to lower your screen resolution.

09-04-2009, 09:15 AM

Really??

Hmm...it sounds weird since everything else can be zoomed in...

But if you say so, I believe in you! Thanks!

09-04-2009, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by tekjonik

Really??

Hmm...it sounds weird since everything else can be zoomed in...

But if you say so, I believe in you! Thanks!

If you're talking about how you can change the size of things in the "Finder" via "View Options"...then the more correct term is...

..."increase everything in size", not "zoomed in".

"Zoomed in" is what you can do if you depress the "command + control + =" keys...or depress the "control key + use the scroll wheel of a mouse".

But in either case I do not believe you can change the size of the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Hope this helps,

- Nick

09-04-2009, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by tekjonik

Hi,

I have my Mac Mini connected to my 42" Samsung TV, which is Full HD. Since I want to utilize the HD picture quality, I set my screen to 1080p, overscan, but then the menu title bar at the top becomes very small. However, dock and icons are no problem because there is a zoom function there, but I can´t find the way to make the menu title bar bigger. Of course, I can hold down the Ctrl key and use the scroll button on the mouse, but it´s not very convenient to do that all the time. So, I hope someone has a solution to my problem?

Thanks!
Tor

This is the reason I sold my Mini I had hooked up to my 52" Samsung LCD. I searched for some kind of browser that would work well from the couch. I couldn't find one. Maybe there is one out there, but I couldn't find it.

09-04-2009, 11:34 AM

There is a tweak you can try, but you use it at your own risk (these commands would be executed in terminal. you do not need to use your administrative password to execute them, and it will not effect currently running apps, only apps executed after you change the defaults entry - plus this will scale all text in the apps run after this, not just the menu bar, but this is about as close as I can think of to solve your problem).

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor <scale factor>

So you could do:

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1.5

and it would increase the overall scaling of everything launched AFTER you executed that code to 150% (with 100% being normal size)

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1

will return everything to default size.

09-04-2009, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Nethfel

There is a tweak you can try, but you use it at your own risk

Thanks for the "use at your own risk" warning!!!

I can just see the posts after this "tweaking" attempt goes off-track!

- Nick

09-04-2009, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by pigoo3

Thanks for the "use at your own risk" warning!!!

I can just see the posts after this "tweaking" attempt goes off-track!

- Nick

hahahahahaha

Yeah, I already envisioned someone putting in 100 for the number thinking that would produce 100% when that would be more like 10,000%.

For a little humor, I went ahead and did it at 100 and grabbed a screenshot - since the tweak only affects things rendered by the OS like text, menus, menu bar, etc, and not the background - basically what you are seeing here is the apple menu button (well, part of it ) and the full space background.

This screenshot is what completely filled the screen I was on (original screen rez 1680x1050, I resized it to 800x500 to be more net friendly)

Thank goodness for command+q

09-04-2009, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by Nethfel

For a little humor, I went ahead and did it at 100 and grabbed a screenshot - since the tweak only affects things rendered by the OS like text, menus, menu bar, etc, and not the background - basically what you are seeing here is the apple menu button (well, part of it ) and the full space background.

This screenshot is what completely filled the screen I was on (original screen rez 1680x1050, I resized it to 800x500 to be more net friendly)

Thank goodness for command+q

The "OP" (I think) was looking for a way to increase the text/font size of the menu's at the top of the screen. Does your tweak do this...and if so, could you post a screenshot of it?

I'm curious.

Thanks,

- Nick

09-04-2009, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by pigoo3

The "OP" (I think) was looking for a way to increase the text/font size of the menu's at the top of the screen. Does your tweak do this...and if so, could you post a screenshot of it?

I'm curious.

Thanks,

- Nick

Ask, and ye shall receive

Here are two attachments of just my top bar, one at 100% the other at 150%.

The one flaw is that it upsizes more then just the menu bar, but also text in the windows as well (which would be good if trying to read something on a screen at distance)

The other thing to keep in mind - once you issue the command, it affects programs and their menus launched AFTER you issued the command, nothing before - which means what one would do is issue the command, launch a program (like safari or mail or whatever) to see if the size is to their liking and then either restart the system or (easier) relaunch finder to have the finder control bar show enlarged - the screen shot I grabbed here was after having finder relaunched.

btw - the reverse operation is also true - like if you're on a screen that only supports 800x600 (assuming you could find such an antique in todays terms) and a window from an app requires 1024x768, you can use numbers <1 on the size to shrink the app, giving kind of a virtual enlarged resolution thing. So if you were to issue a .8, you would have reduced any programs launched after that to 80% original size, so you would gain the appearance that would have fit in 20% more pixel space (of course, it's 20% smaller) but you get the idea.