Bigger window tools

Been raising this elsewhere but perhaps here makes sense as well…

I’m trying to get a window toolset of sprites that are x2 the standard size. This is because my better half’s eyesight is now poor and she is wanting to start using a RO machine again. I can easily scale up things like web browser content. But she has difficulty with the toolsprites being too small.

I know the tools can be bigger (cf elsewhere) but at present I can only do it via scaling up all the individual sprites which is a bit of a chore.

About 2 decades ago I recall a lot of ‘alternative’ toolsprites available, one of which was I think x2 scaled. But I can’t find any copies of these now.

So is there an easy way to x2 all the sprites in the window tool set via one command or DND? Or does anyone know of an x2 set I can still download, like I could have done ages ago?

at present I can only do it via scaling up all the individual sprites which is a bit of a chore.

Have you tried !ConvImgs? The core processing routines are based upon David Pilling’s DPScan, but it allows batch processing of multiple image files.

It can be found at https://www.chris-johnson.org.uk/software/convimgs.html

Would an alternative be to use a higher-DPI mode for the display and, if necessary, apply a lower scale factor to text in applications?

For simplicity I would suggest considering OS3 toolsprites. They are 2D of plain design which could be good with not so good eyes, and they are a much simpler proposition with a lot less icons to have to fiddle with.

The tools are at normal size, I did not feel any need to expand them.

I am not entirely sure where I found these but they would probably be ROL’s, or successor’s, copyright.

I’ve already set up a screen mode and in-window application scaling, etc, that suits her. The snag is the window furniture.

!CovImgs works nicely for scanning though a ToolSprites set of sprites and saving out changed versions. With in a couple of mins I’d done that.

The snag is that I’ve not found an automatic or easy way to recombine the 100+ resulting individual sprite files into one big ToolSprites file! Can’t see an option for that. And the only way I’ve found for getting !Paint to do it is one at a time! Have to keep de-selecting the last one in the new ToolSprites collection before another one will be added rather than overwriting the previous one I’d added.

I guess my problem is that I’ve never done this before so must be missing what should be obvious…

I think I have the OS3 sprites somewhere, so if I can find them I’ll have a look.

Frustrating correction! I can’t get scaling to work. The relevant ‘tick box’ is greyed out and I can see how you enable it, or why it refuses!

As result the processed sprites are the same size as the input ones.

I think I have the OS3 sprites somewhere, so if I can find them I’ll have a look.

In RISC OS 5 you get the older OS3 sprites, just pick Morris4 in the theme setup and reboot

I can’t get scaling to work. The relevant ‘tick box’ is greyed out and I can see how you enable it, or why it refuses!

Mea culpa. It looks like there is a bug in the size settings dialogue. There is a work around. In that settings window select e.g. fit within. The ‘Allow size up’ becomes unshaded. Select it. Now set the ‘Resize by’ option and set 200%. On clicking ‘Set’ the control window shows ‘Scale by 200%’ and the up-scaling then works.

One problem I have realised is that ConvImgs does not deal with multiple sprites in one sprite file. They have to be saved out separately – !Paint saves a selection as a single file. I guess I should look at that.

Apologies. Been distracted and by writing another “Compo” article!

I still can’t get this to work and go from a full tooset to another that is x2 sized. I keep failing in various ways.

Slightly late to this, but if you really want double size (rather than just a bit bigger) then why not use use “Big Mode” which will double everything? I think RComp machines have a configuration option for this, but to give it a quick try see – https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/11/topics/16809#posts-127033

Indeed, if you want bigger window furniture, you probably want bigger toolbars too. “Big Mode”