Why is the font in the DAZ UI so small?
rnollman
Posts: 310
in The Commons
Why is the font in the DAZ UI so small? It has been chronic problem since DAZ Studio's inception? I am 68 years old and have issues with my eyesight. I would think this is a problem that could be solved. Every other graphics application seems to have solved it? Is there some reason DAZ does not address this? I thought getting a bigger monitor with higher resolution would solve the problem, but obviously that is not the case.
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Comments
Generally, the higher the resolution, the smaller everything will be, including the fonts. Many programs include options to increase font size again. In Windows, you can increase fonts and icons via the settings app, I don't know though whether this will affect DAZ Studio. You could also try and turn your monitor resolution down a bit, like not use the very highest setting. This will increase font size.
I'm struggling with the same problem myself, I'm on MacOS and cannot find a way to increase the font size in DS specificall either. Would appreciate such an option, too!
As a younger person I also struggle with the interface at times.
I think the choice of font colors is not ideal. Take a look at the screenshot;
- the body parts are written in grey color on a dark-grey background
- the percentage of the dials is in black color on grey background.
This lack of contrast is really not ideal.
Not sure if this can be modified in any of the settings. I certainly would do that if possible.
Window>Style>Select Style gives a couple of options, and from the same sub menu you can also customise colours within a style.
Yeah, the DS UI hasn't kept up with the pace of increase in monitor resolutions, for sure.
Another thing that bugs the hell out of me is that, when you show hidden parameters, is still extremely difficult to make anything out. Hovering sometimes highlights the text, but it's hit or miss, and usually it doesn't, but that's the same hovering over anything in DS.
So why has DAZ not addressed this problem? We are not talking about a trivial problem. Has anyone approached DAZ about this? Who would I talk to to discuss the matter or get some clarification why DAZ has not addressaed the problem? Does anyone know of other posts related to this that DAZ has responded to? I would think that if enough users complain, we might get some action. Even the fonts on this forum are too small. I have to cntrl + about four times to be able to read the text easily.
From what I understand, it will take a full rewrite to give us larger fonts.
Speaking with a hobby programmer's hat on:
High dpi is a problem. Apparently Win 10 is now on its third different way of coping with it. How programmers are meant to keep up with it when the people producing the compilers can't, I really don't know.
I have a number of programs I release for free, and one of them to do with creating cross stitch charts from digital images is a moderately complex program (100k+ lines of code, 6.5Mb exe file). I suspect that one of the things I am going to have to do fairly soon is put in a screen resolution check into the program and then modify font sizes and draw larger/smaller graphics to maintain the correct actual size regardless of DPI. It is a far from insignificant programming issue. I have already done something similar for printing the charts dependant on the printer dpi, but doing it for every screen component is going to take a good deal of effort. I know where I can put the code, in the 'OnCreate' event as each window is opened, but I will need to have a real world height, width x location & y location for each button, image, combo box, edit box etc hard programmed into the program. The position on the window will then be determined relative to all the other components that need to be re-sized. It normally takes 5 minutes to design a window using a graphical based design tool, then another 10 mins tweaking the sizes & dependancies to get the bits to move right relative to each other on re-sizing the window. Hard programming each size and dependancy based on the screen res will double, maybe triple that for a basic window programming time & it'll get worse as the window complexity increases.
Screen & printer fonts fonts do not always display at the right size, wither. So, I have discovered through a great deal of trial & error and use of 500 point prints that 'Hi There; in Arial 10 point is 13.517mm wide, which I use as a reference to get the required scale factor for correcting font size mismatches.
So, not an easy problem, but not beyond what's possible.
Regards,
Richard
Thanks for that!
I tested these settings a bit.
The darker numbers are connected with one of the background colors. Changing them to brighter tone will result in a too bright background.
From my point of view it would make sense to link them to something else.
Quite ironic that most graphic programs have bad guis. AI can't fix everything.
DS is currently built on QT4, which doesn't really support 4K.
- Greg
Well, Qt4 does not support HDPI settings in Windows, but there is nothing that stops you from changing the font size with for example an argument to the executable, not that uncommon with older Qt software, it just does require some work to fix it.
If you, as a younger person, also notice this, Daz should take notice. Among other things, the perception of contrasts decreases in older people; a non-age-discriminatory interface should therefore be designed in such a way that it can be used equally by all age groups.
I find it impossible to read some parameters, especially on legacy content no matter how I customise the viewport colours.
there is simply not enough contrast between the text and the background and it won't highlight mousing over
for example some movement and adjustment morphs on Aiko3 clothing etc, it's frustrating, I resort to just moving the sliders to see what they do
perfectly viewable in Carrara or Poser of course
Carrara is Qt4 AFAIK (not a programmer but been told it is) it has font size in preferences
it is also possible to use the Windows magnifier. It is a bit tedious, but there are settings to dial it all in to suit what you need. Turning it on and off could be a lot easier. Windows logo key Plus the + key turns it on. Windows logo plus + plus the ESC key turns it off.
It isn't a matter of noticing or not noticing, it is a matter of what is possible given the available resourcs. As I understand it a newer version of Qt is required, which means it won't be possible until the next major version - but that doesn't mean it won't also require further work by the daz developers, in which case it may not be instantly available. I am sure there are people at Daz who suffer the issue too, so there is likely internal will to do something.
Qt is an application framework with many features - the fact that it is sued for some parts of the application doesn't mean it is used for everything. It is quite possible that the Carrara UI is not built on, and so limited by Qt.
Why not use other programming tools?
Visual Studio
C++, Net Framework (the latest is V9)
Accesibility is a must.
The screen I have is 43" I had increased the fonts and icons in Windows Settings (Win+I)
This is how my setup is.
Text Size is set to 150 and the scaling is 175%
I may increae it more, but it will not fit the screen, making it a painful problem.
Not so perfect, at times when I use Daz Studio, I grab a manifying glass to read the letters in the left pane ouch!
Do they support Mac? The actual coding is done with Visual C++/Studio, on Windows, but using the Qt libraries. In any event moving away from Qt would sound to me like a slower process than moving to a newer version of Qt that does support scaling.
Richard Haseltine Hope this can answer your question:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/sboi0y/mac_or_windows_for_c_programming/
https://isocpp.org/get-started#:~:text=There%20are%20good%20free%20C%2B%2B,%2B%2B%2C%20a%20popular%20C%2B%2B%20compiler.
https://www.nobledesktop.com/learn/programming/cost#:~:text=The%20most%20popular%20coding%20languages,are%20all%20free%20to%20use.
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/
It was a rhetorical question, though it does appear that using a different application framework does allow cross-platform devlopment - I didn't dive into that in sufficient depth to see if it would be suitable for an applicaiton like Daz Studio: even if it was the point remains that switching to a different framework would almost certainly take far longer than switching to a newer version of the current framework so this wouldn't speed access to new features like UI scaling.