TouchpadZoom

Virtual pinch-to-zoom for any Windows app — no touchscreen required.

TouchpadZoom converts modifier-key + mouse-wheel into native Windows touch-injection pinch gestures, giving you smooth pinch-to-zoom and pan in apps that only support touch input (maps, design tools, image viewers, etc.).

🌐 Website: touchpad.pages.dev

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✨ Features

• Pinch-to-Zoom — Hold a modifier chord and scroll to zoom in/out with injected two-finger pinch gestures.
• Click-and-Drag Pan — Hold the modifier chord and left-click-drag to pan with an injected two-finger touch.
• Works Everywhere — Uses the Windows Touch Injection API, so it works in any app that supports touch/pinch gestures.
• Configurable — Adjustable trigger chord, zoom speed, animation steps, direction inversion, and more.
• Click Guard — Suppresses accidental clicks during and shortly after zooming.
• Lightweight — Single Python script with no third-party dependencies (only the Windows API via ctypes).
• Installer Included — Ships with an Inno Setup installer that registers the app to run at startup.

📋 Requirements

• Windows 8 or later (uses the Touch Injection API)
• Administrator privileges (required by InitializeTouchInjection)
• Python 3.8+ (if running from source)

🚀 Installation

Installer (recommended)

Download and run ZoomUtility_Installer.exe from the Releases page. The installer:

1. Installs the application to your AppData folder.
2. Adds a Start Menu shortcut.
3. Registers the app to start automatically with Windows.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Domincog/TouchpadZoom.git
cd TouchpadZoom
python zoom.py

Note: Run the terminal/script as Administrator.

🎮 Usage

Once running, you'll see:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Virtual Pinch-to-Zoom running               ║
║ Hold Ctrl + Alt                             ║
║ (Wheel is swallowed in that mode)           ║
║ Ctrl+C to quit                              ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Action	Default Shortcut
Zoom in	Ctrl + Alt + Scroll Up
Zoom out	Ctrl + Alt + Scroll Down
Pan	Ctrl + Alt + Left-click Drag
Quit	Ctrl + C

⚙️ Configuration

All options are available as command-line arguments:

python zoom.py [OPTIONS]

Option	Default	Description
--debug	off	Verbose logging
--spread	60	Starting half-distance between the two virtual fingers (px)
--delta	34	Change in spread per wheel tick (px)
--steps	10	Animation steps per pinch gesture
--step-sleep	0.005	Sleep between animation steps (seconds)
--trigger-chord	ctrl+alt	Modifier chord (ctrl+alt or ctrl+shift)
--invert-direction	off	Invert scroll-to-zoom direction
--compat-profile	on	Diagonal gesture path for broader app compatibility
--down-hold	0.012	Extra hold after touch-down before animation (seconds)
--max-gestures-per-sec	4.0	Rate limit for emitted pinch gestures
--click-guard	on	Suppress accidental clicks during zoom
--click-guard-ms	180	Click suppression cooldown after wheel activity (ms)

Examples

Use Ctrl + Shift as the trigger instead of Ctrl + Alt:

python zoom.py --trigger-chord ctrl+shift

Increase zoom speed and invert direction:

python zoom.py --delta 50 --invert-direction

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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Made with ❤️ by Dominic