Customize text size in message bar, info palette etc

[Martin Forsby]

Hi
Screens have better and better resolution, eyes getting older and older...
Higher resolution means text in message-bar and pallet etc. getting smaller.

The result is that it is harder and harder to read text in the message bar or info-palette etc...
Everything else is easily to customize, but there is no where to set size of text and icons.

This should be a very easy task to fix?

This is also a problem when we have video-conferences meetings, with often large wall-hung screens far away, something that has taken over the old style face-to face meetings almost completely.

So, a BIG wish from here: customize able text size in pallet, message-bar etc. Please!

[Jeremy Best]

I think this is a great idea however I believe it will need to be limited to affecting text only in certain areas to avoid some complications. Because palettes and control windows rely on a somewhat fixed layout in order to make visual sense and maintain relationships between associated controls, increasing the size of text in certain places would shunt all GUI features to the right and/or down, making for some rather troublesome results for some windows. 

 

Some places would definitely benefit from this at no risk though, such as the Callout text editor window. You can already adjust the text size for the Smart Cursor text in the Interactive Appearance Settings in Vectorworks Preferences, so perhaps more controls could be added there to enable this capacity for elements that can accommodate these adjustments. 

 

You can still get some of the benefits offered by high-resolution screens without ever-diminishing text sizes by either: 

• Altering the (projected) resolution of the display in your operating system preferences/settings. - I recommend this method so long as you don't set the screen resolution lower than that prescribed by the System Requirements for Vectorworks. Or 
• Adjusting 'Ease Of Access' 'Scale and Layout' percent in Display settings on Windows. I have tested and recommend this method.

 

The second of the above options (in particular) might adequately serve the functionality requested here. What do you think @Martin Forsby? 

Edited December 4, 2019 by Jeremy Best
Updated and corrected information

[Martin Forsby]

Hi @Jeremy Best, thanks for your suggestions! I agree there is basically no big need to alter size of icons, text is enough.

 

One simple and handy alternative solution could be a few new "info-tools" - just like you get acquisition hints when you fly with the cursor over an object, or get the class info when you fly over the drawing with the eye tool, it would be great to have one or a couple of general "info" tools;

 

1. a tool for basic information: coordinates (x, y, z), same as now can be read with small letters in the message-bar. Maybe class and layer.

2. a "data-info tool" that tells all what you see in the info-bar when you fly over a door, a stair, a slab or any other object with info.

 

Those two tools would greatly help to organize and check the drawing, safer and faster than marking objects to read info-palette info, and it would also be without the risk of accidentally change or alter the drawing, that marking a object always brings... and cursor hints can be set in size already, as you point out :)

 

(Another positive side-effect is that such tools would come handy during skype meetings when using screen-share, a every-day part of our workflow...)

 

Your suggestions to alter resolution affects all programs and comes with less good picture-quality, at least on mac. There are some other options available in the system, but non works without unwanted side-effects... so I think this should and could be solved within the program.