Desktop Fonts/controls
7 posts, 6 voices
Andrew Hodgkinson (6)
465 posts
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Alan Robertson (52)
420 posts
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Personally, one of the things that make Risc OS look like a toy OS compared to other OSs is the size of the dekstop fonts and controls. Even with a high resolution of 1440 x 900, Risc OS looks decidely cumbersome in comparison to Windows. I would love to see a move to smaller sized fonts and corresponding controls (ie if the fonts are smaller, then the control objects than contain the text should be smaller too). I realise that I can make the default font size smaller manually, but unfortunately as all windows have been designed expecting a much bigger font, they look strange. I'd like to see Risc OS looking more professional. nx |
Garry (87)
184 posts
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I'd like this too, but I think it's a bit of a lost cause. The size of radio buttons, scrollbars and check boxes etc. could be altered, as these are a fixed size and controlled by the WIMP (to the best of my knowledge), but buttons, textfields etc. are resizable and are the size defined by the developer, not much we can do about it. We could arbitrarily shrink buttons and textfields, but the developer will have laid out the controls to look good at the standard size, and they may look all wrong if shrunk. I think the only real answer is to use a finer resolution like 1600x1200 or higher. > Personally, one of the things that make Risc OS look like a toy OS > compared to other OSs is the size of the dekstop fonts and controls. > Even with a high resolution of 1440 x 900, Risc OS looks decidely > cumbersome in comparison to Windows. > > I would love to see a move to smaller sized fonts and corresponding > controls (ie if the fonts are smaller, then the control objects than > contain the text should be smaller too). > > I realise that I can make the default font size smaller manually, but > unfortunately as all windows have been designed expecting a much bigger > font, they look strange. > > I'd like to see Risc OS looking more professional. > > nx |
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Andrew Hodgkinson (6)
465 posts
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Alan Robertson (52) wrote: > I realise that I can make the default font size smaller manually, but > unfortunately as all windows have been designed expecting a much bigger > font, they look strange. Therein lies the root feature request - layout manager facilities for RISC OS applications. I'm not sure if you'd try to do this in the Wimp, the Toolbox, or a combination of the too, but the lower level the basic abilities to handle automatically resizing windows and gadgets, the more widely available they'll be to applications written under varied frameworks. Of course applications would need to be updated to cope (unless there could be some sort of option to run an application with the Wimp attempting an intelligent guess at layout management?) but you have to start somewhere. Statically laid out windows result in some very nicely balanced, well spaced, conservative designs compared to some of the misaligned, loads-of-empty-space nightmares I see under more common window managers - but it does make the UI inflexible. |
Adam (47)
40 posts
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Presumably this is what's being talked about: http://www.sagitta.demon.co.uk/rtk/ ? Adam |
Weiss Niklaus (109)
2 posts
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In earlier computers like the A5000 the 'system font' was the desktop font. It had a fixed size. The developers sized the text icons so, that the text fitted into them with the 'system font'. In the RiscPC the 'system font' in icons was replaced by an outlined font with a default (recommended) size of 12 points. I understand: The smaller the size of the desktop font, the smaller the size of text icons could be. But what should happen with other icons like the radio and option buttons, file icons or even developer-specified sprites? Should they be re-scaled accordingly to the desktop font size? Furthermore the distances between the text icons would become bigger, if the text icons would become smaller with a smaller desktop font size. Should these distances be re-sized? As I see, one thing (text icon size depending on desktop font size) calls many others like resizing distances between the icons, scaling non-text icons and even re-sizing the whole window, because smaller icons and smaller distances between icons lead to smaller windows with the same contents. In many cases the windows contain things, that only the particular applications know about. |
Julian Zimmerle (136)
29 posts
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I don’t agree. The big, easy to read default font size is one of the best things about RISC OS. Try using Windows on a screen with 1920×1200 pixels. It gives me a headache after a few hours. With RISC OS I’m fine. And I like the size of its buttons and other controls, because they are easy to hit with the mouse pointer. |
