large fonts make screen illegible

[perfb]

if I turn on extra large fonts in Windows, then the Labview
VI screens become pretty much illegible as all the text overlaps
the controls and each other.

Is there any way to do an automatic re-layout of the screen
so the text no longer overlaps?

Also, some of the icons are pretty indecipherable on hi-res monitors,
is there any way to zoom the icon size, or load a hi-res version of
the icons?

tia!

[altenbach]

I always define a front panel default font of fixed size. In your case, you could try to select all front panel objects at once, then go to the font dialog and select a defined font, e.g. Tahoma 13pt. To play with other sizes, keep it all selected and press ctrl-/ctrl= to decrease/increase the font size.


If your icons are getting "indecipherable", it means that your screen resolution is to high for the monitor size. There is no use running 1600x1200 in a 15" screen. In an ergonomically selected display, the screen size must match the resolution. (e.g. 1024x768 on 17", 1280x1024 on 19", etc.). The size of a pixel should be rather constant.

[Zvezdana S.]

altenbach's answer is exactly right. As a rule, if you know in advance that your application will be used with larger fonts, you should arrange the front panel objects under large font setting. That way, the front panel will at least be readable. You will probably have to balance between having readable front panel under large fonts vs. nice looking front panel under normal fonts, and find equilibrium.
Zvezdana S.

[perfb]

I understand how to compose legible block diagrams and
front panels for a given screen resolution,
but I am wondering how to make Labview's built-in examples
display legibly without having to change my screen resolution to
800x600 with normal fonts.

There seems to be no easy way, as far as I can see,
to quickly resize and relayout and
existing example vi so that text doesnt overlap and icons
aren't all crowded together.

I have played with the alignment controls, but none of them
seem to be useful for relaying out a screen on a different
grid spacing.

Everytime I open an existing Labview example vi, it looks
like a bunch of gobbledygook, text boxes are overlapped and
illegible, icons are crowded together, wire connections
are impossible to see, and I waste a lot of time
trying to move stuff around to make it legible.

I gotta believe they cant have intentionally left out such
a basic feature common to any other CAD program such as
schematic capture etc.

Do they really want us to always use 800x600?
Am I being stupid in trying to run 1024 or greater
with large fonts on a 15" LCD?


>> I always define a front panel default font of fixed size. In your
>> case, you could try to select all front panel objects at once, then go
>> to the font dialog and select a defined font, e.g. Tahoma 13pt. To
>> play with other sizes, keep it all selected and press ctrl-/ctrl= to
>> decrease/increase the font size.
>>
>> If your icons are getting "indecipherable", it means that your screen
>> resolution is to high for the monitor size. There is no use running
>> 1600x1200 in a 15" screen. In an ergonomically selected display, the
>> screen size must match the resolution. (e.g. 1024x768 on 17",
>> 1280x1024 on 19", etc.). The size of a pixel should be rather
>> constant.
>
> if I turn on extra large fonts in Windows, then the Labview
> VI screens become pretty much illegible as all the text overlaps
> the controls and each other.
>
> Is there any way to do an automatic re-layout of the screen
> so the text no longer overlaps?
>
> Also, some of the icons are pretty indecipherable on hi-res monitors,
> is there any way to zoom the icon size, or load a hi-res version of
> the icons?

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> I understand how to compose legible block diagrams and
> front panels for a given screen resolution,
> but I am wondering how to make Labview's built-in examples
> display legibly without having to change my screen resolution to
> 800x600 with normal fonts.
>

The screen resolution isn't a problem, but changing the font metrics by
making a change from regular to large fonts does throw a wrench into the
works. The problem is that LV layout is in pixels. When you make a
subVI icon, it is made up of pixels, not vector drawing like in a CAD
program. On the otherhand, the Large Fonts settings means that a font
of a given size gets about 60% larger in pixels. LV adjusts the objects
to the font on a local level, but is lacking inform
ation about what the
object association is between objects.

So there really isn't enough information, and the choices are to ignore
the large fonts or allow the labels to grow and potentially overlap.

Greg McKaskle