Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:41 pm

Now that I've discovered ClearType and have my WinXP box running the way it's intended, I've gone ahead and updates the user interface font in CMUD.

This isn't the "MUD" font, it's the font you see in all of the various windows, like the settings editor, preferences, etc. In zMUD, this font was called "MS Sans Serif" which is a non-scaleable bitmap font.

However, with stuff like ClearType, "MS Sans Serif" looks really bad. So, I've switched to a normal truetype font and am using "Arial" in CMUD. Once Vista ships, I'll switch this to their new Arial replacement ClearType-optimized font.

I played with Arial with ClearType both on and off. When off, it looks pretty close to the previous MS Sans Serif. With ClearType on, it looks *much* better. Of course, this is on a flat-panel LCD display. A DVI digital input looks the best, but even analog is good. I haven't tested this on a traditional CRT because I don't actually have any computers with a plain CRT anymore (Chiara was the last one to have a regular monitor, but it died about a week ago and now she has a flat panel too).

Anyway, I'll be interested in feedback when you see this in 1.02. I think it makes CMUD look more modern, but people who are really used to the old font or have a low-res CRT monitor might hate it.

Unfortunately, unlike the MUD output font, the user interface font used through CMUD cannot be changed as a preference.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

There's three settings - ClearType is for LCD's, Standard is for CRT's, and Off is for people who have really really slow computers ;)

Standard looks bad on a LCD, ClearType looks bad on a CRT, but the font should work fine under both so long as you aren't forcing the setting to only use ClearType.

As an aside, the standard windows theme I think uses Tahoma for menu and message boxes etc, but that is all configurable in the XP theme anyway. I'm not sure if you can make delphi look up what font the theme calls for, but I'm sure arial or really any true type font should be fine :)

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:38 pm

Rainchild, you are correct...Tahoma is actually the correct font that I should be using, not Arial. Thanks for mentioning that...I was going crazy trying to figure out what font was being used for the menus/toolbars.

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:38 am

Even better, I have figured out how to query the default font set in the system Appearance preferences. CMUD will now use this font instead of forcing MS Sans Serif or Arial. It's pretty annoying that Delphi doesn't do this already. Delphi *always* defaults to MS Sans Serif. I ended up intercepting the form creation process and setting the form's font to the system-defined value. While I was at it, I also set the pixels-per-inch DPI setting for the form, so hopefully CMUD will work better with "large fonts" and other different DPI values. Now that screens have gotten larger, I think it's becoming more common to increase the DPI value.

Magician Joined: 17 Oct 2001 Posts: 371 Location: USA

Just was fiddling around with 1.02, and, although I'm not positive this is related, I think it might be causing problems with the fact that the labels are all scrunched together.

I thought, at first, this might be related to the font setting I have for Windows, but I changed it from Extra Large to Normal, and I still only see about the top half of the text in some labels.

I also went through all of the screen resolutions my monitor supports, and while some resolutions made slightly more text visible, none of them solved the problem.

Btw, by "scrunched together" I mean that often labels run into each other, and some (but by no means all) of the labels have problems with 1) not being able to see the bottom half of the text, or 2) the label isn't scaling so that you can see all of the text, it cuts out in the middle.

I'd post a screen print, but I'm not sure how to do that on these forums.[/img]

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:31 pm

Use the Send Feedback option in the Help menu in CMUD and it will let you attach the screen shot to the feedback report. So just make sure one of the windows is displayed that shows the problem and then use the Send Feedback option.

The setting in your video settings that matters is the "DPI setting" in the General preferences. So tell me what that is set to. The default that I am testing with is "Normal size (96 dpi)".

This might be serious enough to warrant a quick fix if a lot of other people are also having it. Now sure what could be causing it, but the change in font certainly might be.

Oh, also tell me what your Font Smoothing is set to. Right-click on your desktop, go to Properties, then go to the Appearance tab and then click the Effects button.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Have only been running 1.02 for about 5 mins, but I'm not seeing any issues with the new font. I am running normal dpi on a widescreen monitor.

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:15 am

I verified the issue with the font. It only happens on certain right-aligned labels on certain forms and only if your font DPI or system font settings are different than mine.

The problem turned out to be with the Developer Express cxLabel controls. DevExpress doesn't handle right-aligned labels correctly with font changes, so some labels are set with AutoSize set to false. This prevents the label from being resized, and this caused the text in the label to get cutoff if your font settings are larger.

Man, I never though messing with the font would be SUCH A PAIN! I have reported this bug to DevExpress (and they have verified it). In the meantime, I am trying to fix their component myself so that I can turn AutoSize on so that the labels don't get truncated and yet remain properly aligned. It's not fun.

Magician Joined: 17 Oct 2001 Posts: 371 Location: USA

Sorry about not posting back about this a little sooner. My DPI settings are set at 120. Glad you found the problem! Very Happy