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LensIt

A lightweight screen magnifier and annotation overlay for Windows, inspired by Sysinternals ZoomIt, but with smoother zooming and a few extra presentation tools (laser ink, step badges, blur, timer).

Written in pure C++ (Win32 API + GDI+), no third-party dependencies.


What it does

  • Cursor-centered Magnifier: Uses the Windows Magnification API (MagSetFullscreenTransform) for hardware-accelerated zoom without lag.
  • On-screen Drawing: Freehand lines, arrows, rectangles, and highlighters.
  • Step Badges: Numbered markers (1, 2, 3...) to guide walkthroughs or tutorials.
  • Privacy Blur: Quickly redact tokens, passwords, or credentials on screen.
  • Break Timer: A fullscreen overlay with a countdown clock for talks, webinars, or study sessions.
  • Click-through Pin Mode: Keeps annotations on screen while letting you interact with underlying windows.
  • Spotlight & Laser Ink: Dim everything except the cursor area, or draw strokes that fade out automatically after a second.

Controls

The default trigger key is Alt. Hold it down to access shortcuts:

Action Hotkey
Zoom in / out Alt + Mouse Wheel
Draw Line Alt + Left Click + Drag
Draw Arrow Alt + Right Click + Drag
Snap angle (0° / 45° / 90°) Alt + Shift + Drag
Draw Rectangle Alt + Shift + Left Click
Drop Step Badge (1, 2...) Alt + Middle Click
Text on screen Alt + X (Enter to finish, Esc to cancel)
Toggle Highlighter Alt + H
Toggle Blur Redaction Alt + O
Laser Ink (auto-fade) Alt + V
Spotlight mode Alt + S
Whiteboard / Blackboard Alt + W (cycles White -> Dark -> Off)
Keystroke HUD Alt + K
Break Timer Alt + T
Color Switch Alt + R (Red) / G (Green) / B (Blue) / Y (Yellow)
Undo last stroke Alt + Z
Full Screenshot Alt + C
Crop Screenshot Alt + Shift + C
Pin drawings Alt + P (prevents clearing on release)
Reset / Exit active tool Esc

The trigger key and rectangle modifier can be rebound in Settings (right-click the tray icon).

Break Timer Controls

  • Scroll Wheel or ↑ / ↓ adjusts time by ±1 minute.
  • Shift + Scroll or Shift + ↑ / ↓ adjusts by ±5 seconds.
  • Click the clock to type time directly (3:50, 10, etc.).
  • Space toggles pause, Esc dismisses the timer.

Limitations

  • Exclusive Fullscreen: LensIt uses a layered desktop window (UpdateLayeredWindow) combined with the Windows Magnification engine. It will not render over games running in true exclusive fullscreen. If you need it over a game, switch the game to Borderless Windowed.

Building

Requires Visual Studio 2022+ with the Desktop development with C++ workload.

  1. Clone the repo:
    git clone https://github.com/akywaa/LensIt.git
    cd LensIt
  2. Open LensIt.vcxproj in Visual Studio.
  3. Select Release / x64 and build (Ctrl + Shift + B).

All linked libraries (magnification.lib, gdiplus.lib, dwmapi.lib) are included in the default Windows SDK.


License

MIT

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Ultra-fast, bloat-free screen zoom and live annotation tool for Windows. Tiny binary, zero dependencies, almost zero RAM.

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