NavList:

Celestial Tools Beta5 displays OK on two different WinXP SP3 PCs - as Frank expected it would. However the reason that I report this (other than to advise Stan of another display success), is that both PCs are running at a much higher resolution than was/is common for WinXP. I'm using a Dell Inspiron 9300 17" laptop (circa 2005) with a WUXGA display at 1920 x 1200 resolution and a circa 2009 ASUS P6T motherboard outputting to a Dell 30" Monitor Model 3008WFP with a WQSGA display at 2560 x 1600 resolution. So CT Beta5 works OK on both these WinXP PCs at these fairly high resolutions.

Strangely there is another program that I have tried, a 6502 Single Board Computer emulation (a la KIM-1) from CR Bond's website at:

http://www.crbond.com/soft6502.htm

does not work correctly on one of the above mentioned PCs. The Dell Inspiron laptop with WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution outputs a mangled address display somewhat similar to the font mangling that Frank experienced. However the display is OK on the 30" monitor with WQSGA (2560 x 1600) resolution. See attachment for a screen capture of the mangled display. The correct display is shown at the URL above.

The 6502 emulation software is circa 2001.

I'm puzzled that for the 6502 SBC Emulator the 30" monitor with WQSGA (2560 x 1600) resolution displays OK but the 17" laptop with WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution does not. About 3 years ago I discussed this via email with Mr. Bond. He advised that after a system crash he didn't have ready access to his source code so I can't say for sure whether the display mangling is due to an obsolete bit mapped font or to something else.

Sorry for this post drifting off nav topics but I find this mangled display issue intriguing and am glad that Stan's Beta5 is rock solid (display wise) on two older but high resolution PCs.

wmh

On 15 May 2013 @14:14 -0700 Frank Reed wrote:
_________________________________<original message>_______________

Since I brought up the UI issue, I will add some details, which I've already discussed with Stan. The problem occurs in recent version of Windows. That's not surprising since the development environment Stan is using is many years out-of-date. Of course, software developed using an old tool works in Windows XP. That makes sense! The problem only occurs on a fraction of these newer systems, though, specifically those with larger display screens. It's fundamentally caused by an older "bitmap" font ("Microsoft Sans Serif" if anyone's curious) which was still acceptable in Windows until about five years ago. The old bitmapped fonts are now considered obsolete and have been replaced by vector fonts. They were deprecated over a decade ago, but they are now officially unsupported. Software that used them will break under some circumstances. This is normal in nearly all computing environments.

So here's the question facing the software developer, speaking generally now: do we worry about users with recent versions of Windows who have larger displays? Now in nearly every software development case, the answer would be "of course! They're our most important user group." For newer graphics-intensive software, this group might constitute 50% of expected users. But for people trying to learn celestial navigation, these users with new computers and larger displays are much less important. Users who would encounter this issue may amount to only 5% of potential users (arguably just another symptom of the near total lack of interest in celestial navigation among younger people). It may well be reasonable to write them off. Of course, it's possible to adjust system settings. For example, on my computer if I switch to "big" fonts, the UI in Stan's software then looks right. But that's certainly a show-stopper for most users. You don't change system settings just to run one piece of software.

-FER
----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------