Diagram font size changed with Windows Vista

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I installed Windows Vista on my PC. Now when I open old code which was written on Windows XP, all the fonts on the Vi diagrams seem to be slightly bigger. I notice this because text and string constants are now touching other objects when they weren't before. This also applies to bundle\unbundle nodes, properties etc. Anyone know how to fix this? I'm using LabVIEW 8.6. This even happens to newly created VI's

Is this just the new standard?

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Feb 3 2009, 05:03 PM)

I installed Windows Vista on my PC. Now when I open old code which was written on Windows XP, all the fonts on the Vi diagrams seem to be slightly bigger. I notice this because text and string constants are now touching other objects when they weren't before. This also applies to bundle\unbundle nodes, properties etc. Anyone know how to fix this? I'm using LabVIEW 8.6. This even happens to newly created VI's

Is this just the new standard?

I believe it's just the new standard and, if that's the case, the "fix" would be to revert to XP or rework everything based on the new font.

[Chris Davis]

I believe the new standard font on Vista is bigger than it was on XP. That being said I believe you can revert to the classic XP look / theme without having to revert to XP or develop things from scratch. I don't run Vista myself, but Microsoft did something similar when they introduced XP, they had a "classic" theme which made the system look like it was running 2000. Fairly simple directions are listed here.

[JustinThomas]

QUOTE (Val Brown @ Feb 4 2009, 06:57 AM)

I believe it's just the new standard and, if that's the case, the "fix" would be to revert to XP or rework everything based on the new font.

I had the same problem when opening my files on a vista machine. Reworking by moving around the objects did not help much though. It looks ok on the vista machine, but when I move back to XP the font changes again and you end up with the same problem.

[mje]

I code on XP at work and Vista at home. I find this issue very annoying, as it makes a mess of all but the simplest VIs, ones with lots of property/invoke nodes and associated constants can become a pretty good mess of overlapping goodness.

I've become accustomed to leaving plenty of white space in my diagrams now, but it still doesn't solve the "problem" of wires getting bent. I've thrown the housekeeping rule of keeping wire bends to a minimum right out the window, since the condition and position of the wire depends on the last OS the VI was compiled on. Things can get messy around CINs or VIs that use 6x6 type connector panes.

[jdunham]

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Feb 3 2009, 05:03 PM)

I installed Windows Vista on my PC. Now when I open old code which was written on Windows XP, all the fonts on the Vi diagrams seem to be slightly bigger. I notice this because text and string constants are now touching other objects when they weren't before. This also applies to bundle\unbundle nodes, properties etc. Anyone know how to fix this? I'm using LabVIEW 8.6. This even happens to newly created VI's

Is this just the new standard?

Just go into LabVIEW.ini and change all of your fonts to "Tahoma 13". It's just not worth the trouble to put up with the new font.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (jdunham @ Feb 3 2009, 07:31 PM)

Just go into LabVIEW.ini and change all of your fonts to "Tahoma 13". It's just not worth the trouble to put up with the new font.

That's so great. Thanks Jason.

If anyone else is wondering how to do this just add the following to your ini file.:

BDFont="Tahoma" 13

appFont="Tahoma" 13

More details can be found in the http://wiki.lavag.org/LabVIEW_configuration_file/Fonts' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">LabVIEW Wiki here.

[mje]

Well the posted solution obviously works, I'm more of the school that things should work out of the box. If I fix it on my PC, it does nothing to fix it on any other PC that might be looking at the code. In my eyes, it's not a fix at all, it's a kludge.

I'm not saying this is a bug on NI's part: their objects resize as the font metrics change, which is the behavior I expect.

I do believe that it's handled poorly though. For a cross platform development environment that is so dependent on graphical presentation, I'd expect said presentation to be independent of something as silly as choice of system fonts. NI should be using fonts installed with the RTE as a default for display to avoid such issues, resulting in all presentations looking similar. I'm actually very surprised they don't do this since they go to so much effort not to use any OS window models for controls and such. For the most part, controls and layouts that don't derive from the System palette look quite constant across operating systems from what I've seen. The default reliance on the OS for fonts seems like an oversight. This has bothered me for some time, as I used to have similar issues while sharing development on XP and Linux, or even multiple XP systems where accessibility settings are different.

-m

[Darren]

I just got a new Vista machine at work a few weeks ago. One of the first things I did was change the system theme to "Classic" so it looks like the old Windows 2000 look. All the font sizes look normal to me, I'm not seeing any bent wires in old code or larger-than-usual comments. I changed the theme just because I figured the fancy Vista shinyness probably wasn't worth any performance hits I knew I'd encounter (for example, the Start menu took a second to appear with the default Vista theme, but appears instantly with the Classic theme). From what y'all have said, it looks like the font issues were another good reason to go with classic.

-D

[jdunham]

QUOTE (MJE @ Feb 3 2009, 08:43 PM)

Well the posted solution obviously works, I'm more of the school that things should work out of the box. If I fix it on my PC, it does nothing to fix it on any other PC that might be looking at the code. In my eyes, it's not a fix at all, it's a kludge.

I'm not saying this is a bug on NI's part: their objects resize as the font metrics change, which is the behavior I expect.

I do believe that it's handled poorly though. For a cross platform development environment that is so dependent on graphical presentation, I'd expect said presentation to be independent of something as silly as choice of system fonts. NI should be using fonts installed with the RTE as a default for display to avoid such issues, resulting in all presentations looking similar.

Yeah, I agree. When we build our application, we make sure those fonts are in the application's "labview.ini" file, because everything looks wretched otherwise. Forget about any kind of cross-platform GUIs.

It sure would have been nice for NI to have dealt with this a bit better, though I know fonts have always been a pain for them.

[jdunham]

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Feb 3 2009, 08:23 PM)

That's so great. Thanks Jason.

If anyone else is wondering how to do this just add the following to your ini file.:

BDFont="Tahoma" 13

appFont="Tahoma" 13

More details can be found in the http://wiki.lavag.org/LabVIEW_configuration_file/Fonts' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">LabVIEW Wiki here.

By the way, I would fix the appFont, the systemFont and the dialogFont, just in case your existing work uses any of those. We don't usually call out the FPFont and the BDFont, and they will usually point to appFont.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (Darren @ Feb 3 2009, 10:56 PM)

I just got a new Vista machine at work a few weeks ago. ... (for example, the Start menu took a second to appear with the default Vista theme, but appears instantly with the Classic theme).

-D

Did NI give you an old slow machine? Oh, I see, It's because you program in LabVIEW right? All the C developers get the good stuff.

The start menu shoes up instantly for me.

[Darren]

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Feb 4 2009, 02:26 PM)

Did NI give you an old slow machine? Oh, I see, It's because you program in LabVIEW right? All the C developers get the good stuff.

The start menu shoes up instantly for me.

Quad core @2.4 GHz, 4 GB of RAM. I don't think that counts as an old slow machine, does it?

I don't have any shoes in my Start Menu...maybe that was the problem?

-D

[zobert]

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Feb 3 2009, 09:03 PM)

I installed Windows Vista on my PC. Now when I open old code which was written on Windows XP, all the fonts on the Vi diagrams seem to be slightly bigger. I notice this because text and string constants are now touching other objects when they weren't before. This also applies to bundle\unbundle nodes, properties etc. Anyone know how to fix this? I'm using LabVIEW 8.6. This even happens to newly created VI's

Is this just the new standard?

Same issue when 2000 was released.

NT4 MS Sans Serif

2000/XP Tahoma

Vista Segoe UI

I have been using the BDFont=, appFont=, etc... in all ini files since Win2K release since still supporting apps on NT4 and all new apps have alignment issues when installed on NT4.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

QUOTE (MJE @ Feb 3 2009, 11:43 PM)

Well the posted solution obviously works, I'm more of the school that things should work out of the box. If I fix it on my PC, it does nothing to fix it on any other PC that might be looking at the code. In my eyes, it's not a fix at all, it's a kludge.

I'm not saying this is a bug on NI's part: their objects resize as the font metrics change, which is the behavior I expect.

I do believe that it's handled poorly though. For a cross platform development environment that is so dependent on graphical presentation, I'd expect said presentation to be independent of something as silly as choice of system fonts. NI should be using fonts installed with the RTE as a default for display to avoid such issues, resulting in all presentations looking similar. I'm actually very surprised they don't do this since they go to so much effort not to use any OS window models for controls and such.

They would get lynched by even more folks for "dictating" the font they have to work with, even if it would be configurable and just a default setting.

QUOTE (jdunham @ Feb 4 2009, 12:09 PM)

Yeah, I agree. When we build our application, we make sure those fonts are in the application's "labview.ini" file, because everything looks wretched otherwise. Forget about any kind of cross-platform GUIs.

It sure would have been nice for NI to have dealt with this a bit better, though I know fonts have always been a pain for them.

Not just for them. Fonts are a pain whenever you have to deal with them in any software. It's already bad when you just need to make font metrics work but gets impossible if you need to allow changing them. I rather have them use their time on something useful than trying to fix something impossible.

Rolf Kalbermatter