Add Method dialog layout in Delphi 11 Alexandria

[PeterPanettone 158]

The Add Method dialog still seems a desperate attempt to pack as many things as possible into the smallest possible space like in a tuna can:

 

 

Please give them controls more room. There is no need to SQUEEZE everything. Please INCREASE THE WIDTH of the dialog.

 

No one is forcing you to squeeze everything together.

 

Thank you!

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

I have no idea what's different with your system, but it is looking fine over here (Win10 21H1 Resolution 3840x2160 Scale 150% Delphi 11 with HighDPI aktive) :

 

 

[PeterPanettone 158]

49 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

what's different

    

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by PeterPanettone

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

Just tried with 200% scale and now I can see a glitch in the Insertion position drop down, but the text seems quote fine there, too.

 

In your screenshot the font seems a bit too large. The form is designed with Segoe UI 9pt even for older Delphi versions and it does not pick up the IDE font.

Perhaps something special in your environment (f.i. Ease of Access -> Display)? 

[PeterPanettone 158]

20 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

Perhaps something special in your environment

Software developers often tend to shift the blame for software malfunctions onto the users of their software (like politicians tend to blame the voters ). User configurations can be very different. Software developers should take this into account.

Edited September 12, 2021 by PeterPanettone

[PeterPanettone 158]

14 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

The form is designed with Segoe UI 9pt

Wouldn't all problems be solved if you would allow editing this GUI font size?

[dummzeuch 1517]

12 minutes ago, PeterPanettone said:

Software developers often tend to shift the blame for software malfunctions onto the users of their software (like politicians tend to blame the voters ). User configurations can be very different. Software developers should take this into account.

Blaming the software developer(s) is also not going to help. They cannot test their software in all environments.

[PeterPanettone 158]

13 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

Blaming the software developer(s) is also not going to help

Nobody has blamed software developers. This is not a True/False (dialectic) issue.

 

13 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

They cannot test their software in all environments.

That is true. The solution is User-Configurability: Resizable dialogs, flexible layouts, GUI Font Size settings. The time of naive static UIs is long gone.

Edited September 12, 2021 by PeterPanettone

[dummzeuch 1517]

4 minutes ago, PeterPanettone said:

The solution is User-Configurability: Resizable dialogs, flexible layouts, GUI Font Size settings.

... which opens yet another can of worms and makes testing a lot more work.

[PeterPanettone 158]

6 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

which opens yet another can of worms and makes testing a lot more work

DevExpress has a LayoutControl that works perfectly even on High-DPI screens. I advise everyone to try out the DevExpress LayoutControl just to get a feeling of what Flexible Layout means.

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

21 minutes ago, PeterPanettone said:

Wouldn't all problems be solved if you would allow editing this GUI font size?

That is much easier said than done. While increasing the font size inside a text editor control is usually no problem, doing that in a dialog may destroy the complete layout of that dialog. Having larger fonts in an TEdit will automatically increase the height of the edit, but not its width. A checkbox will even keep its height when the font size changes.

Using a larger font inside inside a TRadioGroup also leads to unreadable text.

 

What you suggest would require the scaling of all controls including scaling the complete form. That is exactly what the system scaling is made for. If you want larger fonts in MMX dialogs - increase your system scale. 

 

Short answer: No. There are other areas where my free time is probably better spent.

[Attila Kovacs 631]

@Uwe Raabe Why is your screenshot blurry? Like you were not in DPI Aware mode.

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

37 minutes ago, Attila Kovacs said:

Why is your screenshot blurry?

You are probably referring to the thumbnail displayed in the comment. Click on it and you should see the real size.

[Attila Kovacs 631]

14 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

You are probably referring to the thumbnail displayed in the comment. Click on it and you should see the real size.

No. I'm referring to the picture itself. It's blurry, it's obvious if you can see.

Look at Peter's screenshots, they are crisp.

Why the difference?

I observed this earlier too, also mentioned it but never got any reaction.

Also, MMX and GE having a bunch of mixed forms in font face, size and even "scaled=true/false".

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Attila Kovacs

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

34 minutes ago, Attila Kovacs said:

No. I'm referring to the picture itself. It's blurry, it's obvious if you can see.

Sorry, I cannot see anything blurry in my screenshots. Not sure how I can prove without doing the same as I have done before.

The 150% picture is 835x1071 originally, while the 200% is 1078x1306.

 

I admit that there some controls still have small sizing problems due to the scaling, which I cannot explain for now. Actually the scaling is done by IDE/VCL itself. Perhaps some AutoSize goes haywire here.

 

Anyway, it is definitely not blurry here and it is even not when I inspect the picture in my comment.

 

As a reference, this is a screenshot from Delphi 10.4.2 with the same dialog (838x1069) bitmap scaled 150% by Windows (that one is blurry):

 

Perhaps you can post what you see?

 

[Attila Kovacs 631]

this is the pic the forum embedded: https://en.delphipraxis.net/uploads/monthly_2021_09/image.png.710f98297e699378bb11d3076d428ab4.png

this is a blurry pic, should be rendered the same way as on my pc

[PeterPanettone 158]

The ultimate LAYOUT SOLUTION:

 

https://docs.devexpress.com/WindowsForms/3407/controls-and-libraries/form-layout-managers/layout-and-data-layout-controls/layout-control/layout-control

 

The same exists for VCL.

[Attila Kovacs 631]

this is the pic from PP https://en.delphipraxis.net/uploads/monthly_2021_09/image.png.c710aed0ba6f015e4ee93dd9a8f3d893.png

wget both and compare

[Attila Kovacs 631]

1 minute ago, PeterPanettone said:

The ultimate LAYOUT SOLUTION:

 

even if you would buy it for Uwe, I'm not sure he want to link all the devex* stuff to MMX :DDDD

[PeterPanettone 158]

3 minutes ago, Attila Kovacs said:

all the devex* stuff

It is not a lot of stuff. But it's stuff that REALLY WORKS! The people at DevExpress are really smart developers.

Edited September 12, 2021 by PeterPanettone

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

1 minute ago, Attila Kovacs said:

even if you would buy it for Uwe, I'm not sure he want to link all the devex* stuff to MMX

Indeed, I would never do that to MMX. 

 

Actually I would buy it myself if I would have any use for it that pays back. Usually I work for customers help them maintain or extend their existing software. Sometimes there are a couple of developers working on the project, sometimes I am the only one doing that. From all these dozens of customers I had in all these years only one had DevExpress and then only the grid. It doesn't matter what I think about DevExpress when the customer refuses to buy it. If the customer already uses DevExpress - no problem.

 

So, if someone wants to write an MMX clone with the DevExpress Ultimate Layout Solution - go ahead.

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

20 minutes ago, Attila Kovacs said:

this is a blurry pic, should be rendered the same way as on my pc

This is the original I uploaded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RkPmrRffpr7ra917RRcHMar-vFefEgYp/view?usp=sharing

[Attila Kovacs 631]

@Uwe Raabe I see. It's the forum/browser/whatever then. brrr

[Rinzwind 27]

The same poster has problems with the Delphi 11 font size, so probably plays with individual settings in "ease of access" or whatever instead of only increasing the scale. If complaining it would be helpful to add the specifics. Anyway, Windows is known not to handle this always nicely and depends way too much on developers involvement. I  suggest to depend only on the scale factor (which I have @125% for a 4k screen)... if you don't want too much frustration.

 

anyway, with or without spacing, that dialog is crowded 😉

Edited September 13, 2021 by Rinzwind

[Stano 143]

Um, I like condensed forms Even books! I don't like having to run my eyes and mouse all over the screen