Smaller Fonts Make Me a Happy Guy! [Archive]

View Full Version : Smaller Fonts Make Me a Happy Guy!

Jason Dunn

03-25-2004, 08:00 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ppcw.net/index.php?itemid=1846' target='_blank'>http://www.ppcw.net/index.php?itemid=1846</a><br /><br /></div>I was looking over some of the screen shots at PPCW.net, and this one got me excited:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/16.gif" /> <br /><br />I've been asking (begging?) for a smaller font option since the first Pocket PC came out in 2000. The default font, for me, is simply too big. I never wanted them to change the default font, because for many people it's perfect, but I wanted to see an option to provide a smaller font, system-wide. Yes, I've tried the various font hacks, but they're all pretty ugly - you end up with dialogue boxes that don't look right, and I never wanted to show my Pocket PC to other people because it looked dysfunctional. This looks like an improvement, but I wonder about the degree of control - notice that while the fonts listing the email are small, the rest of the fonts in Pocket Inbox are regular size. I wonder why that is?

SHoTTa35

03-25-2004, 08:14 PM

hehe... where you been... that's the first thing i noticed when you linked that PPCW.net link yesterday...

now that's what i'm talking bout... glance to see all that email at once. Guess it's a good thing i'm broke cuz i was gonna buy a PPC (iPAQ 4155 of-course) but spent the money i got for selling my 2215 plus the money my girl gave me :twisted: :oops: (hehe- she gave me it to buy the iPAQ as a birthday gift - sorry babe.. but this is the reason why i didn't buy it yet.)

Kevin Daly

03-25-2004, 08:24 PM

I know the fonts in WM2003SE are adjustable in size (there's a slider thingy for the purpose in Settings that you can see in the screen shots on PocketPCParadise.com), but I don't know why the non-application text is a different size - it might be that the control explicitly doesn't apply to system text (I can see some rationale for that - they need to be able to predict where it's going to go, and there is less of a reason to give people the choice to see more or less of it, by comparison for instance with the content of a document or a web page).
There is an analogy for this with web browsers: If I select "View->Text Size->Largest" on IE 6, text in web pages that has been designed to allow user-sizing (hint: use "em" when specifying font sizes) will be displayed much larger than normally. However, the text size of the menus and icons labels of the browser itself is unaffected. It looks like Microsoft has adopted a broadly similar approach with its Pocket PC text size.

CESkins

03-25-2004, 08:33 PM

notice that while the fonts listing the email are small, the rest of the fonts in Pocket Inbox are regular size. I wonder why that is?
Quite possibly because the "regular" sized fonts have their size hard coded and do not use a registry setting or other variable for size info.

bbarker

03-25-2004, 08:41 PM

Sigh. I used to prefer tiny fonts. I'd use utilities to print 8 pages on a single sheet of paper. But, alas, my eyes are no longer young.

dean_shan

03-25-2004, 09:01 PM

Yes. Finnaly. I never got the point of have such large text. I mean, how far away are you going to have the PPC away from your eyes.

Will T Smith

03-25-2004, 09:25 PM

I was looking over some of the screen shots at PPCW.net, and this one got me excited:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/16.gif

I've been asking (begging?) for a smaller font option since the first Pocket PC came out in 2000. The default font, for me, is simply too big. I never wanted them to change the default font, because for many people it's perfect, but I wanted to see an option to provide a smaller font, system-wide. Yes, I've tried the various font hacks, but they're all pretty ugly - you end up with dialogue boxes that don't look right, and I never wanted to show my Pocket PC to other people because it looked dysfunctional. This looks like an improvement, but I wonder about the degree of control - notice that while the fonts listing the email are small, the rest of the fonts in Pocket Inbox are regular size. I wonder why that is?

It would be nice to free up some screen space with smaller menu bar fonts. Likewise, a tunable scroll bar size would be nice as well.

Finally, I haven't seen any photos yet on how the "soft keboard" appears in landscape mode. In the "other" solutions. Landsape keyboards looked kind of silly. Did microsoft provide a different template for landscape keyboards.

I'm also curious on how fitaly will respond to this. Their keyboard doesn't seem capable of being "stretched" from one side of the device to another. Will some keyboards appear as a sidebar in landscape mode ????

Iznot Gold

03-25-2004, 10:33 PM

& I got excited when I saw large fonts.....as long as the scaling meets the needs of everyone at both extremes we should all be happy with this accessibility feature!

Regards
David

Antoine

03-26-2004, 01:10 AM

Floodguy

03-26-2004, 03:16 AM

ignar

03-26-2004, 03:26 AM

If you think PocketPC has large fonts, look at Tungsten T3. I was fairly disappointed at its huge font size, especially in Web Pro browser. Yes, they look pretty on 320x480 screen, but actual amount of information delivered on the screen isn't much more than PocketPC screen.

Antoine

03-26-2004, 04:40 AM

What emulator are you talking about? Is there already an update or new SDK out? Didn't got any information about that yet!!
:(

There won't be a new SDK release for WM2003SE. (The APIs basically did not change much.) However, the new emulator images are already available. There is also a specific resource pack aimed at developers who wish to develop for the new features of WM2003SE.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6A34DC83-C3CE-4A4C-AB83-491FD5729551&displaylang=en

The "square" screen mode is fun to play with. It could give birth to really compact devices (assuming they don't have thumb keyboards).

Antoine

AhuhX

03-26-2004, 06:35 AM

I can't even download the emulator images. It keeps dropping the connection at 6meg downloaded. Boo Hoo!

Spiral

03-26-2004, 06:58 AM

i thought one of the freeware registry hacking programs has an option to shrink inbox font?

farnold

03-26-2004, 07:30 AM

Gee, four lines of text left 8O I think something silly like that would be the result of landscape mode :roll:

Just the top and bottom bars are using up more space in landscape. I think they should have made them smaller or - like they did on PCs and also Handheld PCs in the past add an auto hide function :idea:

AhuhX

03-26-2004, 09:04 AM

Just the top and bottom bars are using up more space in landscape. I think they should have made them smaller or - like they did on PCs and also Handheld PCs in the past add an auto hide function :idea:

..Or rip off Palm and have a global toolbar that goes to the side of the screen in landscape mode instead of the bottom... Why not, since Palm's toolbar is heavily influenced by PPC in many ways...

We used to have a global toolbar in Palm-sized PC and now it's a mish-mash with some buttons like "Speaker" and "Wireless" at the top in the application Title Bar, and others like the SIP selector at the bottom in the application menu bar.

I'm hoping MS cleans up the mess with PPC2005!

gohtor

03-26-2004, 09:12 AM

My eyes will definately go bad reading text of that size =)

still a nice feature to have on my overly crowded calendar though!

Is there a full emulator download of this new ppc? or must get and apply the update onto my existing vs2003.net version?

jwf

03-26-2004, 02:02 PM

ISTR you can adjust the scrollbar sizes with PocketTweak.

MacBirdie

03-26-2004, 02:03 PM

You can always change the Inbox message list font sizes in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Inbox \ Settings registry key.
MsgListBoldFont
MsgListHeaderFont
MsgListReadFont
to be exact. :)
Works for me and my Casio E-200 anyway. :)

Arne Hess

03-26-2004, 03:46 PM

Finally, I haven't seen any photos yet on how the "soft keboard" appears in landscape mode. In the "other" solutions. Landsape keyboards looked kind of silly. Did microsoft provide a different template for landscape keyboards.

I've been wondering the same thing so I fired up the emulator in landscape mode and here's what I got:
Which looks different to what I get on my device:
http://www.ppcw.net/images/column/ozup/23.gif
Screenshot taken from: Exclusive Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Screenshots - Part II (http://www.ppcw.net/index.php?itemid=1849)
For me it looks a little bit like a Win XP graphic emulation. Also the folder icons looks different to what I get on my device but more Win XP style (which makes sense if you run an emulator on your XP machine).

Antoine

03-26-2004, 06:56 PM

For me it looks a little bit like a Win XP graphic emulation. Also the folder icons looks different to what I get on my device but more Win XP style (which makes sense if you run an emulator on your XP machine).

I ran the emulator in VGA mode. If I run it in QVGA mode, I get the exact same result as on your device. The folder icons look different because they are in high resolution. The fact that it is emulated does not change the look.

Also, to the people saying that the text is too big: Keep in mind that the VGA resolution is intended for screens about as large as the QVGA screens. This means that the overall image is not bigger, only clearer.

It amazes me to see that "resolution" can be such a difficult concept to grasp for some people. Better resolution directly translates to better image quality. (the only downsides might be the battery life and the weight associated with hi-res screens, but that's a technical issue)

Antoine

disconnected

03-26-2004, 10:20 PM

Jason Dunn

03-26-2004, 10:30 PM

How does the higher resolution work with watching movies? Can pixels be doubled/quadrupled for Video, or does the movie have to be encoded at the higher resolution to fill the screen? And does that mean four times the storage space?

I'm not sure how it will work - thus far WMP on the Pocket PC hasn't had any "fit to screen" functionality, so as of right now it would probably play in a smaller window and you'd have to encode it for 640 x 480 to get it to fill the screen. I don't think "pixel doubling" would work in this case...

I've asked a contact on the Windows Media team for some answers, I'll let you know what I find out (if I can).

MikeInDallas

04-26-2004, 09:33 AM

Its 3:30am and I'm droggy...hope this makes sense... :mrgreen:

This is a realated question/comment. Does anybody know of a font viewer for PPC/WM? The only one I know of is the *.cpl that comes with PHM Power Toys. It's just as limited as the one on 2000/XP, but it does work at least. Problem is, it starts showing fonts at size 8 and doesn't let you tweak weight, height, or anything, to see just how good fonts are. I need to see fonts beginning at less than that!

I spent A whole DAY not long ago downloading fonts for the PPC console apps out there (Microsoft CMD, for example...gives you a kind of "DOS" box). Of the 20+/- fonts I found that all looked suitable, it only recognized one, but it was better than what I had. (For those interested in such a micro font, it's a converted raster font that was the Amiga's system font. size 7 works well: http://66.167.72.10/Topaz-8.zip).

I found topaz-8, BTW, here: http://forum.tobiasjung.net/showthread.php?fid=25&tid=107&old_block=0, which hosts the ProFont designed for programmers.

Then there was the search for the nina.ttf now installed on WM smartphones. Microsoft won't even sell it. I'm not even going there (hint: emulator and remote file view).

I'd like a robust font viewer for PPC, but can't find a thing. Any leads?

Thanks!