Welcome screen

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

Please refer to:

http://www.icetips.com/images/sb5welcome.png

This screenshot is taken from my desktop computer where I have it set
to use large fonts. The inset is the actual image.

Is there any way to make this look better? The image get's enlarged
by about 18% from about 315 to about 380 pixels and the outcome is far
from good. On computers with small fonts the welcome looks sharp and
professional, on computers with large fonts it looks clunky and cheap.


What logic is used to place the image there, i.e. if I provide an
image that is twice the size, will it be stretched down or will it
only show the centered image? Can you provide those images in a
higher resolution so that they fit on a computer with large font and
were scaled down on computer with small fonts since downsizing
generally works much better.

Since the client has small fonts it's not a big deal, but it just
strikes me every time I build the installs on my desktop that it looks
bad on my computer;)

Best regards,

Arnór Baldvinsson
Icetips Software
San Antonio, Texas, USA
www.icetips.com


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http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

Because using large fonts increases the size of the dialog, the installer
has to stretch the bitmap. The Windows API StretchBlt does this
automatically.

To be frank, your screenshot looks fine on all machines here ;-) I have
TFT monitors only.

The side bitmap has to be 164 x 314 pixels (this is the standard normal
site 96 DPI bitmap). Using a larger bitmap is not possible.

Friedrich

--
Friedrich Linder
CEO, Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 5

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

>To be frank, your screenshot looks fine on all machines here ;-) I have
>TFT monitors only.

The screenshot is from a 19" NEC TFT LCD monitor running in 1280x1024
(max) resolution in 120DPI (125%) large font size. With all due
respect the screenshot does _not_ look fine by any stretch of
imagination or visiion. Any image that is stretched _up_ by 25% from
it's original size is going to look bad, certainly if you only use the
built in stretching apis to do it.

It wouldn't be so bad if this wasn't on the _welcome_ screen! It just
makes the install look bad and unprofessional on machines with large
fonts. IMO, I see that as a concern for distributing installs to
users who use large font settings if I can not have control over how
the screens will look on their monitors. Also, the compiler still
warns of +256 color bitmaps not being supported (SB 5.3.1414.0
2006-03-16)

>The side bitmap has to be 164 x 314 pixels (this is the standard normal
>site 96 DPI bitmap). Using a larger bitmap is not possible.

You can use any bitmap you want. I just dumped in an image that is
800x600 compiled and ran the install. Worked fine except then of
course the image was stretched over the entire screen and way out of
it.

Why not have options? It is very easy to detect the DPI and do what
needs to be done. It would be easy to provide an option to link in
_two_ images, one for large font and one for small font, i.e. one for
96DPI and one for 120DPI for example. All my C6.2/3 apps now have
classes that detect if they are running large fonts or small fonts and
sets things accordingly, such as font sizes on buttons and anything
else that I want to show differently. It would also be easy to
provide an option to use just one image that was then scaled down. If
an image is provided with the same aspect ratio but bigger and then
stretched into exactly the space for the image, it would be fine. I
just tested by using an image that fit exactly into the frame on the
large font screen. It was still stretched up by 25% making it look
really bad (this was a photograph) and it would overlap some of the
text and also be cut off at the bottom. However if that image had
been stretched into the frame for the image as defined by the upper
left corner of the client area and the panel line at the bottom and x
number of pixels to the left of the text on the right, it would have
looked perfect. So if I provided an image that was 328 x 628 and SB
scaled itt into that image area, it should look nice in what ever font
settings used until you reached >200% fontsize, which is unlikely.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/07/14/182971.aspx

A lot of programs have this fault and show images and backgrounds
flowing out of the window when run under large fonts. See for
example:

http://www.icetips.com/images/msasw.png

The background doesn't match the window, IMO the backgrounds look out
of place and the window looks bad.

Best regards,

Arnór Baldvinsson
Icetips Software
San Antonio, Texas, USA
www.icetips.com


Subscribe to information from Icetips.com:
http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

In 5.3.1414 it displays a "Bitmap file is > 256 colors" warning. It does
not (I hope <g>) say "Bitmaps > 256 color are not supported" any longer.

I'll see if it is possible to add an option to include both 96 DPI and 120
DPI (and disable stretching) images to a future build. This will not be
compatible with future Windows installers (.msi) because msi installers
always stretch 501 x 314 pixels bitmaps.

Thanks,
Friedrich

--
Friedrich Linder
CEO, Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 5

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

>In 5.3.1414 it displays a "Bitmap file is > 256 colors" warning. It does
>not (I hope <g>) say "Bitmaps > 256 color are not supported" any longer.

No, it is just a warning. Why is a warning needed if it supports >256
color bitmaps?

>I'll see if it is possible to add an option to include both 96 DPI and 120
>DPI (and disable stretching) images to a future build. This will not be
>compatible with future Windows installers (.msi) because msi installers
>always stretch 501 x 314 pixels bitmaps.

Interesting. How does that work with the 164x314 images for SB5? Are
these created as 501x314 and then stretched to 164x314? I wouldn't
put it past MS to do something like that!:(

Could there be an option to center the image and ignore the scaling,
so that the image would appear on a background (maybe selected too)?
So that in large fonts you would still have the same area, but the
image would not fill it? I just categorically hate it when software
stretches my graphic out of proportion and makes it look bad:( When
software requires a 164x314 image to fit into a 197x378 box, it should
have options on how to handle it. Even if MS does a crappy job of it
doesn't mean that we all have to jump off of the cliff!<g>

Best regards,

Arnór Baldvinsson
Icetips Software
San Antonio, Texas, USA
www.icetips.com


Subscribe to information from Icetips.com:
http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

>>In 5.3.1414 it displays a "Bitmap file is > 256 colors" warning. It does
>>not (I hope <g>) say "Bitmaps > 256 color are not supported" any longer.
>
> No, it is just a warning. Why is a warning needed if it supports >256
> color bitmaps?

Quite a few developers still use SB5 to support Windows 95 and 98 machines.
If the video card on such a machine does not support bitmaps > 256 colors
then the machine hangs or GPFs or slows down and it can take up to 60
minutes to displays the first Welcome dialog.

> Interesting. How does that work with the 164x314 images for SB5? Are
> these created as 501x314 and then stretched to 164x314? I wouldn't
> put it past MS to do something like that!:(

We'll provide all side bitmaps in 501x314. In .msi the bitmap fills the
whole dialog. The .msi installer then stretches it automatically (on
large font machines).

> Could there be an option to center the image and ignore the scaling,
> so that the image would appear on a background (maybe selected too)?
> So that in large fonts you would still have the same area, but the
> image would not fill it? I just categorically hate it when software
> stretches my graphic out of proportion and makes it look bad:( When
> software requires a 164x314 image to fit into a 197x378 box, it should
> have options on how to handle it. Even if MS does a crappy job of it
> doesn't mean that we all have to jump off of the cliff!<g>

<g>

I don't know if it is possible to center the image and ignore scaling.
But I'll check if it is possible to add an option to include a second
120 DPI image.

Friedrich

Friedrich Linder
CEO, Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 5

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

>If the video card on such a machine does not support bitmaps > 256 colors
>then the machine hangs or GPFs or slows down and it can take up to 60
>minutes to displays the first Welcome dialog.

Ah! I was fortunate enough to have a full color card (24bit) back in
'91 or something like that - certainly in '93 so I forget that some
computers still have 256 colors!

>We'll provide all side bitmaps in 501x314. In .msi the bitmap fills the
>whole dialog. The .msi installer then stretches it automatically (on
>large font machines).

Ah, ok. So does that mean that the text etc. on the welcome screen
for example on the CR 11 "CrystalReports11_NET_EmbeddedInstall.msi"
covers the width of the window and the text on the window is on the
image? When I look at screenshots it appears that may be the case.

>I don't know if it is possible to center the image and ignore scaling.
>But I'll check if it is possible to add an option to include a second
>120 DPI image.

I would just really like to be able to include a nice image and not
have to worry about it being scaled up. Scaling the other way is
generally much better as long as the aspect ratio is preserved.

Best regards,

Arnór Baldvinsson
Icetips Software
San Antonio, Texas, USA
www.icetips.com


Subscribe to information from Icetips.com:
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