Difference between revisions of "Window Scale Guide"

Revision as of 14:41, 23 May 2007

Slash Command

/window_scale window_name float

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Rescaling the User Interface

Rescaling all of the Graphical User Interface (GUI or just UI) can be done with a slider found in Menu/Options/Graphics/User Interface/Window Scale. All the windows in the UI can be shrunk to 64% of their standard size or magnified to 154% of their standard size.

Changing the scale value rescales proportionally all the texts and graphics in the window and proportionately rescales the maximum and minimum sizes of windows that can by manually resized through clicking-and-dragging their borders.

Note that changing this value and then exiting the Options Window by the Save button will change every window to this value, even if they've already been individually rescaled to some other value (see below). If you do not change the value of the slider, and you have individually resized windows, and then choose Save, the value set on this universal slider is ignored -- the slider has to be changed and then saved in order to reset all windows to the new value. Note that the scale of the Health window is attached to the value of the slider bar. If you change scaling of the Health window individually, then the value of this slider will change, and then the next time you choose Save to exit from Options, all the window will be reset to the new value. In other words, individually scaling Health will eventually lead to resetting all the windows to the same scale value. So, set your Health window scale first, and then save it under options, and then go rescale the rest of the windows to your preferences.

Rescaling Individual Windows

The problem with rescaling all the windows with the slider is that some windows don't scale well, e.g., if you shrink everything to 80%, then the text in the mission window will run off the window and disappear, or the pop-up 'color commentary' windows when you enter a mission are formatted horribly in that the 'OK' button hovers over the text.

Luckily, individual windows are scalable individually with this command:

/window_scale windowname scale

Where windowname is the name of a window, and scale is a number between .64 and 1.54 (64% and 154%).

Window Names

• Health
• Options

• Chat
• Team
• Friend(s)
• Super
• Email
• Chat1, Chat2, Chat3, Chat4 (these are the Tabs 1-4 windows)

• Tray, or Power(s)
• Powerlist
• Insp(iration(s))
• Enhancements (always with an 's')
• Salvage

• Target
• Actions (related to Target)
• Info

• Nav
• Map
• Contact(s)
• Mission
• Clue(s)
• Badge (no s)

Examples:

So, to make the pet window at scale 75%:
/window_scale pet .75

Or to make the power tray 120%:
/windowscale tray 1.2

Note: There are also the commands: /window_hide /window_show (or, /show) and /windowtoggle (or, /toggle), which also take a windowname argument.

Note: Subwindows docked to a parent window will scale to the parent window (and not the other way around). If a subwindow is undocked (click the blue button) from its parent window, then the two can be rescaled independently of each other. Redocking an undocked subwindow forces it to take the scaling of the parent window.

Exceptions to the Rule

The Help window (Menu/Help) can be shown with the hide/show/toggle command but can't be resized with /windowscale, instead, it will automatically take the same scale as the Health window and will resize with the Health window, even though it is not docked to the Health window.

The Support window (Menu/Support, or, through /bug or /petition command) can't be made to display with the usual commands (hide/show/toggle), nor can it be individually resized; instead, it takes the scale of the Health window.

The Menu window can only be displayed with the /menu command (and not show/hide/toggle menu), nor can it ever be rescaled.

Text Size, Chat, and Font Size.

The text in rescaled windows scales proportionately with the window; that is, tiny windows give you tiny text and huge windows give you huge text... almost. Unfortunately, it's not exact and that can throw the text wrapping off and the placement of graphics within the windows. So, you might wind up missing a few letters or words of the text, or have a graphic hide some of the text. Usually, this isn't noticeable until you get beyond a 15% magnification or reduction.

The Chat windows are unique in that you can alter the size of the font in the Chat windows independently of scaling of the window. Now, keep in mind that scaling Chat windows up or down will proportionately scale the size of the font. But you have further scaling of the font with the Menu/Options/General/Chat/Font Size Slider. You can choose font sizes from 5 to 20.

So, let's say you want a small Chat window to keep track of your healing, but you don't want it to take up a lot of space. Do this:

1. Shrink chat it to it's minimum with /windowscale chat .54.
2. Open up a new Tab Chat Window, add a tab which keeps track of healing.
3. undock the window, place it wherever you want.
4. Manually reduce the size of the window by dragging the borders. There, a tiny little window that keeps track of healing.

However, you will probably find that the text for all the chat windows is now too small to read... so, you go into Options and increase the font size to a size that's legible. You can also increase the size of your regular chat windows by dragging the borders so that they're much larger then the tiny healing-tracking window. By shrinking all of chat first, rather than just that one subChat window gives you the ability to resize any chat windows to a smaller footprint that would be allowed at the normal scale level.

Luckily, no matter what scale your chat windows or font, the text wrapping in a chat window doesn't ever chop off any words or letters (OK, maybe just a tiny bit of a letter).