Font size overrides.

How about smaller too?

Sunday, February 19, 2006 by Digisurfer | Discussion: WindowBlinds

I don't know if anyone can answer my question, and it seems like a completely obvious one to ask so I'm sorry if it's already been answered before. The question is: Why can't we make fonts smaller? Why only larger? Some skins have font sizes that are too big, especially for buttons which causes wrap-around or strange offsets, and this is hugely annoying sometimes with otherwise perfectly good skins. I have a really hard time understanding why this ability has been missing for so long, is missing even now with version 5, yet the ability has been there for a while now to make fonts larger in 10% increments. Thanks all! Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here.
10 Reply 2 Referrals
NightTrainthedark
Reply #1 Monday, February 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Change the fonts for the entire skin to arial or segui bk. They are more cooperative fonts with windowblinds and might work better for you. It's worth a try.

Daiwa
Reply #2 Monday, February 20, 2006 2:58 PM
I think you are correct, that fonts can't be made smaller as an override. As NT says, you'd have to change to font settings within the skin itself to get them smaller.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #3 Monday, February 20, 2006 4:08 PM
you'd have to change to font settings within the skin itself


If you do it in skinstudio you can customize things any way you like..to an extent.

In windowblinds settings you can override the skin fonts. Thats what I meat.

Digisurfer
Reply #4 Monday, February 20, 2006 4:28 PM
Yeah, I've used Skin Studio to edit fonts and other things in the past, but it's kind of a pain since I seem to be having to do it way too often. Corrent me if I'm wrong, but not everyone has Skin Studio either. It's one of those irks about WB that seems so painfully obvious, that one can only wonder as to why the feature is not in there already, especially since you can already make them larger in 10% increments and have been able to for quite some time now. It's kind of like giving a person only half of a key to open a locked door with lol. I don't know, am I just being too picky or is my complaint justified? I mean, it's not like I'm one to whine very often since the Internet is overflowing already with such stuff, though nor am I asking for much... unless the entire program needs to be rewritten just to add that in of course, heh. Thanks for the replies in any case. They are appreciated.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #5 Monday, February 20, 2006 4:46 PM
Not trying to be wise here but have you considered a resolution switch?

It is very rare that someone is looking to make their fonts smaller. I am guessing you are running 800 x 600 resolution. AAAAAAH! Why would you do that?

DanilloOC likes small fonts. Try one of his skins.

Daiwa
Reply #6 Monday, February 20, 2006 10:58 PM
Me, too. Smaller is better (up to a point).

As for SkinStudio, everyone may not have it, but everyone may have it - it's a free download.

Digisurfer
Reply #7 Sunday, February 26, 2006 10:23 PM
Ah, I thought SkinStudio only came with the ObjectDesktop suite. Thanks for the correct info. Still doesn't change the fact that a feature is missing which doesn't make any sense. My resolution is always 1920x1200 by the way. It's not a matter of readability. That has never been the issue foe me. It's that slightly oversized text wraps around on buttons when it shouldn't. Being able to decrease the font size by 10% alone would be helpful for 90% of the skins out there.

Daiwa
Reply #8 Sunday, February 26, 2006 11:34 PM
Are you also using a larger DPI Windows font setting? I understand that may be an issue, also, but the details escape me at the moment.

I run my XP rig @ 1400x1050 and the only time I run into the wrapping is when a normal weight font is used for the normal button text and a bold weight font is used for any of the other states - the bold text will truncate & wrap. I'm guessing this happens because the button is "sized" by WB using the normal state font & the content margins for the button & the button sizing is not "dynamic".

Digisurfer
Reply #9 Saturday, March 11, 2006 9:59 AM
Are you also using a larger DPI Windows font setting?


No, my eye sight is still pretty good, so even at 1920x1200 I prefer normal fonts. I do turn on Cleartype though since I have an LCD monitor (a Dell 2405FPW 24" widescreen model). That's about it though.

Daiwa
Reply #10 Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:36 PM
There must be something about the combination of your resolution and your video drivers that is playing into this. There's no way that 90% of the skins out there have this problem (except in your environment, that is). As I said, the only time I see it here is when the various button states use different font weights and not that many skins do that. I don't think ClearType is the problem, since I see this on both Win2K, which doesn't have that option, and XP with ClearType enabled.

One more thing to try would be to decrease the left & right content margins for the buttons that are doing this (using SkinStudio) - you can even use negative numbers, if necessary. Give that a go & report back if you like.

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