from dapper to edgy: a problem with screen/font size

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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I have a somewhat generic 17 inch multiscan monitor that has a horizontal 
frequency from 30-70 KHz and a max resolution of 1280x1024 @60 Hz. Or at
least that's what I copied from the box before I lost it some time ago...

I have an ATI rage 128 video card.

I can't remember much of what  I did to configure my old fedora core
system (fc1 or fc2) Nor what I did (if anything) to Kubuntu breezy,
nor dapper to get something that I think was referred to as a virtual
desktop when I used to change the resolution on the fly with a
keyboard shortcut of <ctrl>+<alt>+<+> or <ctrl>+<alt>+<->... 

Is "virtual desktop" the correct term???

All I know for sure is that with fedora 1 & 2, as well as with breezy &
dapper those shortcuts did cycle through 4 screen resolutions. my normal
screen was the same as I get now when "kcontrol > peripherals > display"
says its running at 1280x1024. I can use the screen size slide bar to get
larger text in places like application menus and, for example mozilla
bookmark selection. Like I used to get with <ctrl>+<alt>+<+>.  Except
that is that when the shortcut was working the total desktop area didn't
really seam to change. but rather my view of it zoomed in. and if I
needed to see something that wasn't inside the current viewing area I
could push the edge of the screen with the mouse causing the visible area
to scroll. 

This was mostly useful when my eyes were tired and I couldn't make out
the fine print used in places like mozilla bookmarks or ooffice pull
down menus. 

Then when I was done with the fine print menu, I could simply
<ctrl>+<alt>+<-> back to my normal desktop resolution and  all my open
windows would still have the same size and position as before I zoomed
in... Now if I try to do this with the slidebar some of my open windows
get distorted. Sigh.

I can use "kcontrol > appearance > fonts" to affect these things in KDE
applications but not in applications like mozilla & ooffice.

I can tell mozilla to use larger print INSIDE the page I'm looking
at but not the menu/bookmark text.

Is there a way to get edgy to give me the "virtual desktop" behavior I
described above????? 

Or, if not, is there a way to force non-kde applications to use larger
fonts for internal menus, taskbars, etc... ???

My eyes just aren't what they used to be. And trying to look at the
screen with reading glasses on doesn't seam to work well. And quickly
gives me a splitting headache...


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