Upland OL User community

Connect Designer not scaling for 4K screens

#1

Around may 2021 (iirc) I reported that Connect Designer is nearly unusable on 4K screens because UI elements are tiny, all offered “workarounds” did not work or were not feasible. In my opinion a modern, contemporary software should scale correctly on those screens.

I was promised a solution for the december 2021 version, but that was not the case. Now it is one year later and Connect Designer still is unusable on 4K screens (and because of the small icon sizes hardly usable on WQHD screens).

When will this be implemented at last?

Thanks for an answer in advance.

2022.2 Designer Design panel wrong size
#2

We have fixed several issues related to High-DPI monitors in upcoming version 2022.2. However, we already know that even in the new version there remains a few additional issues, which are actively being worked on for version 2023.1.

Version 2022.2 should be coming out shortly.

#3

A meanwhile workaround is to set “Compatibility mode” for Connect Designer. Maybe you did not try that way. It works fine for some of our customers.

  1. Navigate to your Connect Designer shortcut (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PlanetPress Connect).
  2. Right click on the shortcut “OL Connect Designer” and choose Properties.
  3. In the “Compatibility” tab click on “Change high DPI-Settings”.
  4. Activate “Override high DPI scaling behavior.” and choose the option “System”.
  5. Restart your Connect Designer.

That should work. :wink:

#4

@thomasweber No, that does certainly not work. Those and similar “advices” by support were ruled out as not working in early 2021.

#5

@Phil

We have fixed several issues related to High-DPI monitors in upcoming version 2022.2. However, we already know that even in the new version there remains a few additional issues, which are actively being worked on for version 2023.1.

Version 2022.2 should be coming out shortly.

Can you give more details about what was fixed and what still does not work? A partial solution most probably will not help.

#6

That information will be published with the Release Notes in 2022.2.

#7

Hi @Xanathon ,

I asked someone who also has a 4k monitor and he says that workaround works for him, using a display scale of 175%. Apparently it fixes the scaling issues but it does make the UI look blurry. I believe you when you say it doesn’t work for you though, your environment may be different.

The issues that should be fixed in 2022.2 relate to the scale of UI components (toolbars, icons). What we haven’t been able to fix yet is the scale of the browser in the welcome screen and in template editors, and we noticed some cosmetic issues at display scales of 175% and above.

#8

@Sander

That also does not help because it affects all applications on the desktop. Other applications scale correctly and are then FAR too large. That also was suggested and dismissed in early 2021. I can say that every available option was researched and nothing helped that involved the OS. The only solution must be bugfixes by Objectif Lune (these issues were fixed on Eclipse years ago). I want to add that this is damaging my health (eyesight) if forced to work with it (and it violates german workplace equipment and usability conformity laws). We delayed a neccessary migration from Suite to Connect because of this, but the matter becomes more pressing every day.

#9

Perhaps we are talking about different things? Changing compatibility settings for the designer shortcut only affects the designer, not the entire desktop. It’s a local setting, not an OS setting.

#10

There is general UI scaling. That affects all applications. And then there is a compatbility setting for only this application. Both are OS settings. And it did not work. Regardless what I did set there, Connect Designer did not scale.

#11

Gotcha. Perhaps there is something in your environment that prevents this from working properly, but just to eliminate any misunderstanding I created a video based on my own system. Note that everything looks comically large because I don’t have a high-resolution monitor.

I’m first opening the designer (2022.1) normally, which doesn’t look right (splash screen too small, etc.). Then I’m doing the same thing after changing the compatibility settings in the designer shortcut, which fixes the scale.

Sorry for the file transfer link (which will expire at some point), it’s too large to attach here apparently.

Edit: I just want to be absolutely sure there is no misunderstanding because if compatibility settings have no effect on your system I’m worried that any fixes we apply might also not work as expected.

#12

Thanks for the video, but I have to say it again: That does not work. The application is not scaled. We ruled that method out a long time ago. This is the setting at this moment (and as it is for months):

image
image.png1220×794 268 KB

“System: Extended” also does not work.

And as I said: “System” scaling depends on the system scaling settings (basic Windows scaling for the HiDPI screen) and thus this only works if system scaling is set that high. In that case other applications will also be upscaled and that is not the desired result.

This can only be fixed in the application by becoming HighDPI aware.

#13

In my settings the checkbox under Programm-DPI is not checked, but I assume that doesn’t matter. System scaling means the application is scaled by the OS according to the configured Windows display scale. An application that is high dpi aware scales itself according to the Windows display scale without the need for intervention by the OS.

I understand that you want the designer to use a different scale compared to other applications, which is not a use case we have considered. Eclipse does have a command-line option to do that (swt.autoScale) and we will be whitelisting that option in 2022.2, so perhaps that helps. As mentioned this will only affect toolbars and icons for now, we hope to make further improvements in 2023.1.

#14

I tried all combinations of those checkboxes without any differences.

No, I do not want to use the Designer “on different scales compared to other applications”. Other applications scale correctly for 4K screens with or without this setting, Designer does not. As I said before: this is a problem of Designer, not the OS or other software we use. This was solved on Eclipse, that also points to the problem being Designer.

There is an icon scaling option in one of the Eclipse .ini files that could have helped in the past to scale at least the icons, that was not present in Designers.ini settings, I tried that. In addition to that support told me to leave the .ini files alone or they would not be able to give support any longer.

Does that mean font and menu sizes still do not scale in 2022.2?

#15

I’m not saying it is a problem of the OS or other software. The Connect designer is not high dpi aware and we are trying to fix that. I’m not disagreeing with you.

I’m confused about what you’re saying, specifically this:

“System” scaling depends on the system scaling settings (basic Windows scaling for the HiDPI screen) and thus this only works if system scaling is set that high. In that case other applications will also be upscaled and that is not the desired result.

Setting the compatibility option to “system” doesn’t mean you should also change your system-wide display scale. We want the system to scale the application up to the configured display scale.

You can find the current display scale as follows: right-click the desktop > Display settings > Scale and layout > Change the size of text, apps and other items.

Icons in the Connect designer will look too small if that number is set to 125%, 150%, 225% or 250%. This is caused by the fact that Eclipse rounds to the nearest multiple of 100 by default, rounding down at 25% or 50%. We changed the swt.autoScale setting in 2022.2 so that Eclipse no longer rounds up or down. Unfortunately this can cause some icons to look a bit jagged, and that’s one of the things we hope to improve in 2023.1.

Modifying .ini files is perfectly fine, you just need to be aware that the designer refuses to start if you add a setting that is not whitelisted.

The swt.autoScale setting affects all SWT controls, including menus and any text or icons rendered in those controls.

#16

You may want to tell that to your german support, they threatened to stop support if we do that.

#17

Yes I know that, but as I said above, this changes it for ALL applications, and we do not want that. All other applications are fine.

#18

I don’t expect you to change that value. Either the system should scale the application up to the configured display scale (through compatibility settings) or the application should scale itself up.

I listed multiple display scales because I don’t know the value on your system. I did this to explain how 2022.1 behaves for different display scales and how we expect 2022.2 to behave.

#19

Hi @Xanathon,

I am one of the developers of the Designer and I have a 27" 4k monitor myself with Windows scaling set to 175%.

I agree that we unfortunately don’t fully support high dpi at the moment. However with the workaround it is workable for me. I get the following result:

Screenshot%202022-12-08%20155717
Screenshot 2022-12-08 155717.png3840×2160 871 KB

As you can see, the application is usable although text is not as sharp as it is in the Notepad application that is also in the screenshot.

Can you post a screenshot of how it looks like on your system when you apply the workaround that was described? Preferable one where you have unchecked the “Diese Einstellung verwenden, um Skalierungsprobleme fur dieses Programm hier anstatt in den Einstellungen zu beheben.” checkbox in the compatibility settings.

I’m just trying to understand what happens differently on your system.

#20

This is on a 4K screen, the application is already upscaled to WQHD, the icons are tiny and cannot be made out ergonomically, on real 4K this is even way smaller and completely unusable. The text in the UI boxes on the outer sides of the UI is way too small with no option for zooming (the center design can be zoomed, that is not the problem, only source, that also has no zoom levels). There is no option to globally increase texts in the attribute boxes via font settings like in Eclipse, also the following ico saclaing like in Eclipse does not work:

-Dswt.enable.autoScale=true
-Dswt.autoScale=150
-Dswt.autoScale.method=nearest

This looks exactly the same with the option checked or unchecked.

image
image.png3840×2095 809 KB