Zoom without ctrl

Miro has this comfortably handled, as mentioned. It’s simply a preference (or a well intentioned “auto-detect” that never automatically worked for me).

Can you please match this bar, Figma? It’s a pretty solid argument to make that interpreting the mouse wheel’s intent in a wide open canvas as a linear scroll is just fundamentally wrong. It ignores the interaction paradigm established by the space’s context.

Forcing people to change the way they work in Figma, in this case, not being able to scroll zoom, is fundamentally at odds with the philosophy behind Figma.

I got around this limitation by mapping ‘command’ to a thumb button on my mouse that I can hold to scroll zoom.

Seriously, how hard can this be? Adding my enthusiastic support to this - every time I come to do something in Figma I spend half my time forgetting to hold “z”, “z+option” or the alternative hell that is “cmd + scroll”. It might not be how Figma would like us to behave, but I have this vague memory that good UX meets people where they are, or supports them in any changes…

A very simple and essential yet ignored feature!

This is a near essential feature when working with business stakeholders, ain’t nobody got time to learn keyboard shortcuts for a tool they dont use often

I found a workaround to this problem, but it requires the use of a third party tool called X-Mouse Button Control.

Once the tool is installed, you have to add an application profile for Figma. Then under the “Layer 1” tab, add “Simulated keys” commands for Wheel Up and Wheel Down. The custom keys command for these should be {CTRL}{MWUP} and {CTRL}{MWDN} respectively. Once the changes are applied, you should be able to simply use the mousewheel to zoom in Figma. Note that the tool should be running for this to work.

Would love to see Figma add a pref option for scroll wheel zoom without Ctrl. I’ve now wasted sever hours trying to figure out a workaround without installing any third party software.

I wrote an AutoHotKey script that works in Windows to zoom in Figma without holding the control key, but discovered that holding control key doesn’t also scroll the sidebar layers or styles lists.

So I added a check of the pixel color under the mouse to not hold down the control key if the mouse is probably over a color commonly found in the sidebar.

If anyone else has suggestions or improvements for this script, please share them.

AutoHotKey v2 Script to Zoom without holding Ctrl in Figma
& mousewheel works in menus

;***********
; Autohotkey setting needed for the Figma Zoom script to work
; must be one of the first lines of the AutoHotKeys script

SetTitleMatchMode(2)

;***********
; Test to make sure AutoHotkeys is working. Type: ahktest in notepad or text editor and it should expand to "Test Sucess"
::ahktest::Test Sucess - Autohotkeys is working


;***************************************
; Figma - Zoom without holding Control Key - Desktop & Web App - v2.0 - 2023-08-19

; Lines that start with ; are comments
; Updated to AutoHotKey 2.x format

;***********

#HotIf (WinActive("ahk_exe chrome.exe") && WinActive("– Figma") && !WinActive("Recently viewed – Figma") && !WinActive("Drafts – Figma") && !WinActive("Figma Help")) or (WinActive("ahk_exe figma.exe"))
{

	Wheelup::
	{
		FigmaZoom("wheelup")
		Return
	}

	Wheeldown::
	{
		FigmaZoom("wheeldown")
		Return
	}
}


FigmaZoom(mouseAction)
{
	; SETTINGS
	figZoomMultiplier := 1
        ; Change to increase the intensity of the zoom, try: 4
        ; Hold down Ctrl for finer zoom control

	showColorDebug := false
        ; Change from false to true to show the color pixel you're over when you use the mousewheel

	; Figma UI colors to ignore
        ; color order is 0xRRGGBB
	figPanelColor := "0x2C2C2C"
	figPanelSelect := "0x4A5878"
	figPanelSubSelect := "0x394360"
	figPanelPurpleLine := "0x652CA8"
	figPanelBlueLine := "0x0A6DC2"
	figPanelPurpleText := "0xD1A8FF"
	figMenuHover := "0x383838"
	figBlueHighlight := "0x0C8CE9"
	figPopUpBackground := "0x1E1E1E"

	MouseGetPos(&X, &Y)
	color := PixelGetColor(X, Y, )

        ; Debug Lines for testing colors
	if (showColorDebug = true)
	{
		SetTimer(RemoveToolTip, 4000)
		ToolTip("pixel color `n" color "`n---`n" "known colors `n" figPanelColor "`n" figPanelSelect "`n" figPanelSubSelect "`n" figPanelPurpleLine "`n" figPanelBlueLine "`n" figPanelPurpleText "`n" figMenuHover "`n" figBlueHighlight "`n" figPopUpBackground)
	}

	if ( (color != figPanelColor) and (color !=figPanelSelect) and (color !=figPanelSubSelect) and (color !=figPanelPurpleLine) and (color !=figPanelBlueLine) and (color !=figPanelPurpleText) and (color !=figMenuHover) and (color !=figBlueHighlight) and (color !=figPopUpBackground) )
	{
		Send("{Ctrl down}")
		Loop figZoomMultiplier
		{
			Send("{" mouseAction "}")
			Sleep(10)
		}
		Send("{Ctrl up}")
	}
	else
	{
		Send("{" mouseAction "}")
	}
	Return
}


RemoveToolTip()
{
	SetTimer(RemoveToolTip,0)
	ToolTip()
	Return
}


;***************************************

Notes

• Lines that start with ; are comments
• Colors are for Dark Mode, but other colors could be added
• If your mouse is over any of the listed colors in the script then the control key won’t be pressed automatically

Versions
v1.00 - 2023-04-11
v1.01 - 2023-04-23 - changed how keys are sent and removed wait between keypresses
v2.00 - 2023-09-19 - Updated to AutoHotKeys v2 format - Added text replacement test - Add ability to multiply zoom intensity

To use this script, you need to download AutoHotKey for Windows v2 from their website:

how is this still a thing? please dont pull an Adobe XD and ignore basic fundamental requests for years, something that wouldnt take more than a few hours to implement as an option at least. Please if you’re reading this Figma engineers, go use Miro, and tell me which is easier to navigate? sometimes, we just want to browse our artboards with the mouse…is that too much to ask?

People suggesting trackpad or keyboard dont seem to get it, a lot of us want to just browse our artboards with the mosue only…my work-around its to assign my mouse’s back button as ctrl via logi tech options and hold that in while I scroll, but thats not very intuitive or comfortable. Surely, with that 20 billion you could do this one little thing for us Figma, ahem Adobe?

Keeping this request alive. Give us the option to use just the wheel for zooming, pretty please!