H&M on Surface Pro 3

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H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by TimStone »

I have recently acquired a Surface Pro 3 as my "grab and go" laptop. With most applications, I have no problem viewing the screen at a workable level.

With H&M, even by setting the Text control to the largest level, it is still very difficult to read the screen, and thus I can not work on help text. I realize there was a discussion about skins for the finished help documents, but I'm actually interested in a workable screen so I can work on the actual documents.

I need both the text, and the controls, to be larger. It's not a problem on my 23" desktop, but the Surface, which is my mobile unit, is simply not workable.

Are there any configuration changes perhaps I'm not aware of ?

Thanks.

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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tim,

There aren't any configuration changes for this yet. The problem here is the very high resolution screen on the Surface Pro, and the fact that Windows does not handle asset scaling on such screens very well yet. Other programs are struggling with this as well -- Adobe Photoshop was completely unusable on screens like this until quite recently. Now I have heard that it has moved in the other direction, and that the buttons and controls are now all much too big on devices like the Surface.

There may be global scaling options in the graphics settings or elsewhere that you can adjust to mitigate the problem, but I can't promise that they would propagate to Help & Manual. It's worth looking into though. This Microsoft support page may be helpful:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/ ... lay-issues

I'll pass this on to our dev team, we are clearly going to need new screen settings for these devices. :?
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Update: Help & Manual will accommodate itself to the Windows scaling, but you will need to set the font scaling to at least 200% on your Surface Pro in desktop mode to get a usable UI on the hi-res screen. You're going to have the same problem with all Win32 programs, but if they expand like HM does when you change the Windows scaling they should be usable. :)
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by TimStone »

I did find a setting that helps based on your input.

First, under properties for the .exe, turn off the font scaling for high DPI resolutions
Second, in H&M, change the Text setting to Large fonts.

It is now more readable.

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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tim,

Glad to hear it got more readable now. On our side, our developers have already looked into this and it's now clear that Help & Manual needs to handle scaling above 150% better. Apparently, small, hi-res screens like the Surface generally need to be set to around 200% for decent ergonomics at the moment.

Off topic: How are you enjoying the Surface Pro 3? I haven't had a chance to look at one yet but I've been considering it. I'm still pretty much married to my traditional Thinkpad/Lenovo docking station, however... :)
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by TimStone »

Good Morning from Southern California

First, it was more readable, but the text is still too small to work without magnifying glasses. I will try it again when you are able to address the resolution for a better solution. I realize the new display format has its issues with many programs, but I think that will resolve over time.

I have multiple computers including an All In One desktop with dual displays, 17" notebook, and slate tablet. I decided I wanted to reduce the number of devices ( there is also an iPad, iPod, and Windows phone ). I need a desktop solution for major production, and a "grab and go" solution for when I am out of the office. The notebook was too big to be very portable. The slate was OK but it's also a non-standard resolution, and Samsung is not honoring their commitment to support any of their Win 7 devices ( even when sold with the Win 8 upgrade ) if Win 8 is installed.

I did a lot of research and was seriously considering the Lenovo Think Pad Yoga offered by the Microsoft Store ( a nice configuration ). Then the Surface Pro 3 was announced and it actually met my needs better than any other solution. The emphasis here is "my needs". I wanted a device that was very portable, light, had good resolution, and would work with Office 365 and Visual Studio 2013. It handles these very well. I also wanted one that could dock for a bigger monitor and LAN, plus would have external storage. The dock does all this and has 5 USB ports. It can be docked ( charging ), and I simply grab it, toss it in the case, and go ... very fast. My app development files are synced between the desktop and Surface and all other documents are synced in the cloud with my Office 365 account. This makes it very portable. Ultimately development files can be setup to be cloud based.

I also like Win 8.1 ( u 1 ) and find it very easy to use. This is a key to the Surface. I think it is a good device, and I believe advances over the next year will be amazing within the OS. I have the i5, 256GB / 8 GB RAM configuration. With 32 GB micro-SD chips, capacity when traveling is ample. When on the desktop, it attaches to a 2TB drive. I think it is an excellent solution.

The issue most people will have is running full applications on the small screen. Depending on what some people do, this may not be practical. It is fine when at a site where you can plug into an existing monitor. With HDMI so prevalent, this can actually be done almost anywhere. However, without the external monitor, some apps just may not be workable .... yet.

I hope this helps.

Tim Stone
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tim,

That's a great rundown, thanks a lot! :)
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Martin Wynne
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Tim,

I have recently acquired a Surface Pro 3 and I'm a bit disappointed that H&M is so difficult to use on it. Being able to work on H&M while on the move was one of the reasons for getting it. But the H&M dialogs are all too small to read properly. I have to use the Windows screen magnifier to see what I'm doing. Or wear my late grandmother's magnifying reading specs. :)

It's a bit puzzling because all my own Delphi-developed applications are working fine on the Surface Pro, going back 20 years in some cases. The difference seems to be that on all my forms I have always set Scaled:=False; (whereas the default is True). This seems to produce the anomalous result in Windows 8.1 that they do then get scaled up, whereas leaving the default means that they don't. :?

To see what I'm talking about you might like to try my Comments Finder utility on one of these hi-res devices, for the download see:

http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtop ... 478#p41478

Here is what it looks like on my usual Win7 desktop system:
hm_win7.png
H&M is set to 120dpi for the topics and you can see that the text on my Comments Finder window is about the same size as the H&M topic text.

Here is the same thing on the Surface Pro 3:
hm_surpro3.png
You can see that the Surface Pro 3 has scaled up my Comments Finder window to a usable size. But H&M (still at the 120dpi option for the topic text) has not been scaled and although the topic text is just about usable, the ribbon menus and TOC are not. :?

I have sized these images to look as close as I can get to what I'm seeing on my screens.

If what I'm saying is correct (big if), a quick H&M solution for Surface Pro users might be something roughly like this in the H&M startup:

....

if Surface Pro then begin

for HmComponent:=Components[0] to Components[ComponentCount-1] do

if HmComponent is TForm then HmComponent.Scaled:=False;

....

regards,

Martin.
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

For some reason I can't edit that, but here is a more sensible bit of code: :)

Code: Select all

var
  n:integer;
  HmComponent:TComponent;

begin
  if Application.ComponentCount<1 then EXIT;
 
  for n:=Application.ComponentCount-1 downto 0 do begin

    HmComponent:=Application.Components[n];

    if (HmComponent is TForm) then TForm(HmComponent).Scaled:=False;

  end;
end;

Martin.
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

There are a number of zooming issues we are going to address in a future version.

PS: Did you get the i5 or i7 version? I'm also interested in getting one and I'm on the fence about which processor to choose. I'm concerned that it may not be worth it to get the i7 if it's quickly forced to throttle down for any task where its additional power would really be required... :?
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:PS: Did you get the i5 or i7 version? I'm also interested in getting one and I'm on the fence about which processor to choose. I'm concerned that it may not be worth it to get the i7 if it's quickly forced to throttle down for any task where its additional power would really be required... :?
Hi Tim,

I've got the i5/128GB version which seems fine to me. I haven't found it too slow for anything I've tried so far, although I'm not intending that it should replace every other computer I own. :)

I did read somewhere that there are overheating problems with the i7 and that Microsoft are working on it.

Biggest gripes so far are with the clip-on keyboard, as I knew there would be. No Insert key so I can't use overwrite mode in any text editor. No PrintScreen key so I can't make quick screenshots to the clipboard -- have to use the Windows snipping thingy instead. The Fn key doesn't latch, so pressing shortcuts like Ctrl+F4 requires both hands and much dexterity -- it's not a shortcut if it takes longer to do than clicking the menu. For any serious work at home I plug in a proper USB keyboard.

It's also my first use of Windows 8. Biggest gripe with that so far is the change they have made to the menus. Menus now drop down to the left of the heading, and sub-menus now appear on the left of the main menu, even when there is plenty of space on the right. This is very annoying and seems daft when the arrow is pointing to the right. The natural mouse movement when navigating menus is top-left to bottom-right. Do you know if this is the same for all Windows 8.1 or only on the Surface? And is there a setting anywhere to change it? My suspicion when Microsoft make some established function more inconvenient to use is that they are getting ready to remove it entirely in a later version of Windows. I'm already fearful for the future of EMF metafiles in the presence of XPS and PDF files.

Let me know if there is anything else you want to know about the Surface. :)

regards,

Martin.
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hi Martin,

Please try the 6.5.2 beta: http://download.ec-software.com/help-an ... p-v652.exe

It has improved support for high resolution displays and scales UI dialogs better. Topic editor is still restricted to 120 dpi (which is the equivalent to text sizes of 125%). A full featured zoom function, which is required to make the editor scale properly on systems with 150%+ font sizes, is in the works. This, however, will still take a while. Because the zoom affects every part of H&M - edit, display, export, import, print. It's a huge undertaking.
for HmComponent:=Components[0] to Components[ComponentCount-1] do
if HmComponent is TForm then HmComponent.Scaled:=False;
When you run this program on your surface tablet, it is irrelevant if Scaled is false or true, because it is getting ignored, unless your Delphi application declares itself DPI-aware, which I doubt it does. Do a check, implement a

Code: Select all

ShowMessage('Screen.PixelsPerInch = ' + inttostr(Screen.PixelsPerInch));
Result should be 144 on Surface Pro 3. You'll be surprised :-)
Alexander Halser
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Alexander,

Many thanks for build 2994. That's a big improvement. :)

The topic text is still a bit small, but the XML font size can be changed in the Program Options and this also affects the custom HTML configuration pages. So H&M is now very usable on the Surface Pro.

There are four dpi settings on the Surface Pro3: 96dpi (100%); 120dpi (125%); 144dpi (150%); 192dpi (200%); with 144dpi as the default (marked "recommended").

I was aware that scaled=False is being ignored. Which seems to be the case for all the other applications I have tried, including my own. But not for H&M before build 2994 for some reason which remained unscaled and too small to use. What did you change?

Having my application automatically scaled up works quite well for the controls and fonts -- but NOT for single-pixel line graphics on the canvas, which become fuzzy instead of crisp. I'm going to experiment with setting Form.PixelsPerInch:=Screen.PixelsPerInch to see if that prevents the automatic scaling. I can then adjust the controls using Form.ScaleBy().

On most of my dialogs for the past 15 years I have included up-down scaling buttons for the user, so that they can adjust it to whatever is comfortable. It uses Form.ScaleBy on a 10:9 ratio for each click. I may need to change that ratio to get a better sync with the screen dpi settings:
scaling_updown.png
This seemed an unnecessary luxury when I first started doing it, but I'm now very glad I did because it means users can adjust even very old programs to be usable on the latest hi-res screens. Ideally such buttons would be a standard part of all Windows dialogs, but as always we just have to make the best of what we are given by Microsoft.

thanks again,

Martin.
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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the Surface info. You could try a bluetooth keyboard with an insert key instead, there are lots that are better than the keyboard cover. I use the MS Wedge for mobile use, but that doesn't have an Insert key either. However, there are two simple solutions.
  • Run the on-screen keyboard utility osk.exe (included with Windows 8 ), that has all the keys and you can use it for switching between insert/overwrite
  • Use an AutoHotKey keyboard macro to map another key using Send {Insert}
You should also absolutely install either Classic Shell or Stardock Start8 to give you a decent start menu and search capabilities in Desktop mode. Windows 8 is pretty frustrating in Desktop mode without them if you're a developer. I use both on different machines and they're both excellent.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Re: H&M on Surface Pro 3

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

But not for H&M before build 2994 for some reason which remained unscaled and too small to use. What did you change?
It was a small bug and a feature that did not work well (anymore). H&M was always aware of different resolutions and scaled itself. Since 1997. Until WinVista, there were basically just two font sizes - normal and large, or 96 and 120 dpi, respectivly. That changed with Vista and Vista introduced a new Windows API call that an application required to use to declare itself dpi-aware. Otherwise, Windows would run the application with a virtual 96 dpi and upscale it at runtime. We had implemented this with H&M v5 and carried it over to H&M v6. On Win7, this behaviour changed: on systems with 96 to 120 dpi, Windows treated applications (again) like on XP, letting them scale without explicitely being "dpi-aware". Beyond 120 dpi, the runtime upscaling done by the OS sets in and the app is run with a virtual 96 dpi. Unless the application explicitely declares itself dpi-aware. Either bei API call at runtime or by an entry in the application manifest.

H&M did this at runtime, but it did it too late. So the OS started the application with a virtual 96 dpi, and Delphi forms unit and TScreen initialized "96" - no scaling necessary. But slighly after, the API call was executed and this prevented the OS from upscaling the forms at runtime. That's why the dialogs were extra small and not scaled at all. The main form was scaled though, but that was a bug/coincidence with the ribbon component.

We changed the dpi-awareness and included it in the manifest, so Delphi gets the correct screen-dpi right at start and scales dialogs appropriately. The editor dpi-setting is restricted to 96-120 dpi (richview has a separate setting). That's about what can work without a real zoom in the editor, because the dpi just affects the font size, wheras pictures, margins and table sizes are still measured in pixels. So this update is a compromise, a real zoom is in the works and we are also working on making H&M really ready for high resolution monitors with bigger icons. Right now it has 2 icon sets with 16 and 32 pixel. For 4K monitors, we need them in 16, 24, 32, 48 and 64 pixels and many of them have to be redesigned from scratch, because we don't have them in these resolutions.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
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