distorted fonts and incorrectly sized windows

  • Thread starter Thread starter Olli Krollmann
  • Start date Start date
O

Olli Krollmann

hello folks,

we have been developing several .NET-based windows forms applications during
the last two years. there are two mysterious display problems that we have
encountered so far but have been unable to find any information about:

1. distorted fonts. when placing label controls on forms or setting form or
grid captions we often notice that the label or title text is stretched out
in the left part, displays correctly in the middle part, and is compressed
in
the right part. eg a grid title like "Order Details Information" contains
two
pixels spacing between the letters in "Order", is correctly spaced in the
word "Details", and most of the letters in the right part of "Information"
would touch each other with no separating pixel between them. it almost
looks
as if the spacing is calculated in a degressing fashion from left to right.
is this a known problem? has anyone encountered this before? could it be
related to a certain display driver or graphics adapter model? i can provide
a screenshot if needed to display the distortion.

2. incorrectly sized forms and message boxes. there is an even stranger
problem, that windows forms and message boxes are incorrectly sized if they
belong to a .NET application. this problem may occur as early as at the end
of the .NET Framework installation, when the "Installation Finished" screen
gets clipped in height so that the lower part of the window is invisible.
MSI
setup packages generated with .NET may also be reduced in height so that the
buttons like "Next >" only display their upper border. on the other hand
message boxes or forms may be enlarged in either width or height, and cannot
be resized. MinimumWidth and MinimumHeight properties are no longer honored.
it appears as if the window size is determined by the very first window that
is displayed by a .NET application, and all windows that are created after
that have the same size, or at least the same width or height. thus we
suspect that some internal .NET data structures buffer the settings of the
first window and incorrectly apply them to all subsequent windows. this is
not consistent, but rather happens on only some pc's. we have not yet been
able to determine a common component or setting among the affected machines.
again, the same questions as in 1.

any help or insight is appreciated.

TIA,
olli krollmann, mcse2000
krollmann software
 
I have noticed the distorted-font problem with MS Sans Serif. Changing to
Arial reduced but did not eliminate the problem. I have absolutely no idea
what is causing it. As you say, it is a matter of uneven horizontal letter
spacing, with a bit too much spacing at the left and a bit too little at the
right. I suspect a rather deep bug in Windows or .NET.
 
I had a similar problem. The cause was my PC load. XP as set to UK
English, VS load as US. My main application was being run in Europe. I
had set several settings specifically to display for UK English. Not
taking into account local regional settings. My solution was to reload
my machine and all software for International English and leave custom
display settings alone!!

I also found out that some high-end graphics cards have regional
settings that could over-ride the machine settings. I only encountered
this when playing with the API. Again, leave it alone!! It's EVIL!!!!

Also, some users had installed a "themes engine" for XP. This
caused all kinds of headaches with display. I told my users to
un-install the software as I could not develop interfaces to handle
this. Easy way out, I know, but less stressful.

Hope this helps
 
Is anybody from Microsoft monitoring these entries?

I have same problem. I have spent many hours researching. It is a relief to
find this entry. I'm not as 'out of it' as I thought.
Some users have distorted and bleeding fonts while others do not.
We initially used font sizes like 'x-small' and 'xx-small'. This was the
problem. So, I had to go back and change all font sizes to actual pt sizes
to get things under control. Even then, there still seems to some kind of
'enlarging' going on in the frames for just a few users. I've had to adjust
the size of the text lines as well.
We have a few thousand users to be concerned with and we worried we haven't
done enough.

I'd like to hear from a source in Microsoft that can give some ideas.
 
Olie,

The change that you get an official answer from Microsoft in these
newsgroups is low.

All answers in the newsgroups from Microsoft are "AS IS"

Secondly this is a reply on another message, so probably not monitored.

If you want an answer from Microsoft than the way to go is to contact them
direct.

(In addition if you want an answer from a Microsoft employee, than add that
to the subject in a new message)

Just my thought,

Cor
 
Thanks for the tips, Cor. It has been a while since I was in these newsgroups
and the format has changed a little-- so I wasn't sure I was in the right
place; but, by the names of the groups, I'm pretty sure I'm in the correct
place.
I will submit the question directly, as you suggested.

Thanks, again.
Tom
 
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