On Dec 7, 2018, at 10:32 AM, Robert ListMail wrote: > I showed a scaled up version of a few forms, during a migration to v17 and > later I decided to move everything to automatic stylesheets as recommended by > Keisuke that this is best practices now. So, Jefferey, are you using > automatic stylesheets? > > What determines the font size of automatic style sheets? In Windows 10, what > should that size be…? > > I have a client that kinda liked the scaled up larger forms…. I moved away > from that because of the “best practices” suggestions here and because the > button graphics were also scaled and did not look as sharp.
If you use “automatic” style sheet then every few years when Apple — or Microsoft — decides to change the default system font you are covered. Remember on the Macintosh System 1.0 the font was Chicago, then later it was Charcoal, then Lucida Grande then Helvetica Neue and now its Apple's new San Francisco. So if 4D had style sheet support back in v2 days and you set it to “Automatic”, then as you upgraded your 4D database to new versions of 4D and you upgraded your Mac to each macOS version, the font would have automatically changed without you doing anything. That’s what Automatic is all about. It also changes the size too. If you you want that, or NEED that, then use it. I don’t want or need that. I want to choose what font and size I want to use on forms. I don’t want it chosen for me by the operating system. The new font usually has different metrics so you might see truncation at the right or bottom or other issues. I want to control when the font changes in my 4D applications. So I have created a set of style sheets and I use them EVERYWHERE. Repeat… EVERYWHERE. NEVER do I choose a font or size from the Property list. Choose a style sheet. If I need something different from the style sheets I have defined, I create a new one. This also removes cross platform font selection issues I’ve had in the past. Note that it is OK to add a style like bold, or italic or underline to a form object that has a style sheet associated with it. Same for colors. That helps when you want to occasionally add italic or an underline or red color to something. I use style sheets for printed forms too. No problem with having 50+ style sheets defined. 4D can handle it. I might have 8 style sheets for a single report to cover all the different elements on that report. Different sizes, bold, etc. And this also makes printing reports work well cross platform. You choose “Helvetica” on macOS and “Arial” on Windows or whatever you want that looks good. You determine what looks good by printing it out and giving it the eye ball and making that decision. After all you are the designer and software architect, so act like it and make these decisions. :) Regarding the size of fonts used on forms, that’s a decision you and your client must make. Each client will have different needs. I’ll give you 2 examples: I have one client that has no “old people” and everyone is “young”. So they like everything 11 point. Why? Because they want to pack as much as they can on the screen and everyone has no problem reading that size. So that’s what they get. I set the style sheets and I’m done. Another client has a mix of old and young people. Some of the “old” people don’t have as good eye sight as when they were young. (I’m in that situation myself.) So the “old” people crank down their monitor resolution. I’ve seen some that have it set at the maximum low value so that the screen renders at 1024x768! That’s a problem because my default minimum window size today is 1000x660. And on Windows with the Taskbar at the bottom taking up pixels and the window title bar taking up more, and the Windows MDI window title bar even more, a 1000x660 window can’t open full size. Scroll bars appear. The typical user with a typical monitor today using the default resolution of the monitor and 100% setting on Windows has no problem. But these “i can’t see because I’m old so I need to blow up the monitor size” people complain that they have to scroll all the time. So the fix for this customer had 2 parts. First, I increased font size on the style sheets by 1 point. From 11 point to 12 point. Amazing how much difference a single point makes with today’s systems. Young people didn’t notice or care. Second was I had all the “old” people with 1024/786 monitor resolution increase their resolution to 1280x720 or more. Some people still complained that it was “too small to read” and the only answer for that is “for you it is, but for everyone else it is fine. A pair of glasses would easily fix this”. They go quiet when you say that because that's the whole reason for the problem. Vanity. They’ve never worn glasses and they don’t want to start. So I’d talk with you client and tell them you can set the font size to 18 point if they want. But the consequence is less on each screen, or you’ll have to buy everyone 27” monitors. If you are using style sheets it’s easy to make the change. But you will also may have to do some object resizing to eliminate right and bottom truncation in many areas. Pro tip: always leave extra room to the right and bottom of text objects, so if you have to bump up the size a point it will not result in truncation issues you have to deal with. This also helps when Apple or Microsoft does a system font change and you decide you want to use that and the new font has different metrics. Form scaling is really a legacy feature that is still hanging around for those old database that used it back in the 90’s when 4D was first ported to Windows. Style sheets are the way to go. Tim ***************************************** Tim Nevels Innovative Solutions 785-749-3444 timnev...@mac.com ***************************************** ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: https://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:4d_tech-unsubscr...@lists.4d.com **********************************************************************
