On Wren's interface

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA

First of all, thanks so much for the amazing free software! It's really impressive. Been really enjoying checking out Wren, but last night actually started to get a headache from trying to read the super-tiny controls and labels.

It doesn't help that I'm on a laptop with a kind of small display, but I see others have also requested a zoom-able interface. Are there any updates on the possibility of this?

Otherwise, as things are now, are there any workarounds people have found to being able to use Wren with a less tiny patching interface? So far I have tried using the built-in Windows magnifier (works, but everything is very blurry) and DPI scaling (which makes everything blurry + for some reason makes patch wires invisible).

Would appreciate others suggestions, thanks for reading Smile

Blue Hell · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 2:38 pm Post subject:

Hi stelpa, and welcome

to the forum.

Yeah scaling will make things blurry, as almost everything is bitmap based (and not vector based). It would be a lot of work to change this, and also I did some experiments with vector based drawing, but the Delph FMX controls seem to be unsuitable - as in being very very slow, at least for what I did with them.

Would it help to have pop windows for inputs/outputs (and maybe displays)? they now are on controls only .. I think it would be possible to have a user settable font for the popup windows.

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA

Blue Hell · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:15 pm Post subject:

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA

Blue Hell · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:13 pm Post subject:

I've looked into it, and it is doable, got a proof of concept working with an elephant sized red font .. just needs some work now to make it user controllable, nothing too much it seems ... soo ... stay tuned & watch this space Exclamation

I think it is a good ideo to have .. had been pondering hints on connectors for myself a while ago already .. as I sometimes have to look into the source code to remember what some connectors do ... and getting the font user configurable just makes sense to me.

The reason for everything being so small is ... I don't want things to scroll .. so every useless pixel I can get out .. gets out ...

Blue Hell · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:26 pm Post subject:

I have made a pre-relase implementing the above mentioned.

For the details see https://bluehell.nl/wren/#changes around 2021-04-10.

To get the pre-release use https://bluehell.nl/wren/wren.exe

For how to use a pre-release see : https://bluehell.nl/wiekietje/pmwiki.php/Wren/PreRelease

wakyct · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:52 pm Post subject:

Cool jan, I'll check that out this weekend.

stelpa, I feel you on the tiny interface, I think I went through the same steps as you, trying the magnifer, etcetera. Eventually, I guess I got used to it. Adjusting the font size of the module text (in general setup) and thickening the wire size (in the top UI bar) helped somewhat. I might have one advantage in that my laptop's resolution is quite low, 1366x768.

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA

Blue Hell · Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:12 pm Post subject:

Ah yes .. that window has a fixed amount of pixels reserved for the text below the image .. which of course only worked for a fixed font ... made a bug report for it .. hope to fix it soon.

Thanks for reporting it.

And I'm glad it helps you use Wren Cool

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA

Blue Hell · Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:44 pm Post subject:

Ok, hint window size seem to be calculated correctly now,also for very small fonts Laughing

You can re-issue the pre-release procedure as mentioned above.

stelpa · Joined: Apr 09, 2021 Posts: 21 Location: USA