AngelLoader v1.11.0 - now works better on Wine! (updated 2025/07/24) - by FenPhoenix
Ramone on 19/4/2019 at 08:11
works great. another tiny thing about 'Last Played' (don't hate me), when I click it it shows me the opposite of what I'm looking for, no big deal I just have to click it again, but tought I'd point out.
and a bigger (or smaller) thing, I know nothing about code or how to create a program, would it be a pain to add a zoom thingy for the FM list font too? because of the grid or something
FenPhoenix on 19/4/2019 at 10:08
Quote Posted by Ramone
works great. another tiny thing about 'Last Played' (don't hate me), when I click it it shows me the opposite of what I'm looking for, no big deal I just have to click it again, but tought I'd point out.
It sorts in ascending first, so it puts blank dates first, then earliest to latest. I don't wanna make the sort directions arbitrarily go the opposite of what they're supposed to for some columns, though I get what you're saying, you're more likely to want the latest dates at the top right away. Hmm...
Quote:
and a bigger (or smaller) thing, I know nothing about code or how to create a program, would it be a pain to add a zoom thingy for the FM list font too? because of the grid or something
I looked into it a bit, and it looks like it could be possible but it's very much more difficult and comes with some complications. (The readme zoom is just a nice easy Zoom property that you can set right there; there's no such property on the FM list and so one has to hack at it manually). I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees. Also, the UI framework I'm using - Windows Forms - is pretty old and not very amenable to modernities like easy dynamic scaling and such. I used it because the alternatives were either unacceptably laggy (WPF), require using the Microsoft Store (UWP), or come with an overly large disk footprint and/or can't load RTF files (Qt). So what I'm saying is, even if I could add zoom to the FM list, there's no way I could add it to the top-right tabs for instance, so that would still be unscaled. Meh.
I'd dearly love to be using a better UI framework, but there you are... /tangent
Ramone on 19/4/2019 at 19:18
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
It sorts in ascending first, so it puts blank dates first, then earliest to latest. I don't wanna make the sort directions arbitrarily go the opposite of what they're supposed to for some columns, though I get what you're saying, you're more likely to want the latest dates at the top right away. Hmm...
I looked into it a bit, and it looks like it could be possible but it's very much more difficult and comes with some complications. (The readme zoom is just a nice easy Zoom property that you can set right there; there's no such property on the FM list and so one has to hack at it manually). I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees. Also, the UI framework I'm using - Windows Forms - is pretty old and not very amenable to modernities like easy dynamic scaling and such. I used it because the alternatives were either unacceptably laggy (WPF), require using the Microsoft Store (UWP), or come with an overly large disk footprint and/or can't load RTF files (Qt). So what I'm saying is, even if I could add zoom to the FM list, there's no way I could add it to the top-right tabs for instance, so that would still be unscaled. Meh.
I'd dearly love to be using a better UI framework, but there you are... /tangent
Got it, not a problem.
I have no more suggestions for now, great stuff
Dahenjo on 19/4/2019 at 20:05
Quote Posted by Ramone
and a bigger (or smaller) thing, I know nothing about code or how to create a program, would it be a pain to add a zoom thingy for the FM list font too? because of the grid or something
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
I looked into it a bit, and it looks like it could be possible but it's very much more difficult and comes with some complications. (The readme zoom is just a nice easy Zoom property that you can set right there; there's no such property on the FM list and so one has to hack at it manually). I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees. Also, the UI framework I'm using - Windows Forms - is pretty old and not very amenable to modernities like easy dynamic scaling and such. I used it because the alternatives were either unacceptably laggy (WPF), require using the Microsoft Store (UWP), or come with an overly large disk footprint and/or can't load RTF files (Qt). So what I'm saying is, even if I could add zoom to the FM list, there's no way I could add it to the top-right tabs for instance, so that would still be unscaled. Meh.
I'd dearly love to be using a better UI framework, but there you are... /tangent
@Ramone - a lot depends on your screen resolution and any scaling settings in effect. In Win10 I'm using 3840x2160 UHD at 175% scaling and the text size of the AL grid is on the small side but readable. If I set scaling to 200% the grid text size is about perfect in AL but then it's too big in some other apps, menus, etc so 175% is best for me overall. I don't know your situation or if you did all these things, but maybe try scaling things up a bit if possible & see if it works with the rest of your setup.
@Fen - I also thought of this during testing and we did discuss scaling a bit but I thought it might need to be dealt with on the user's end. I've tried changing font size ('Make text bigger') in Win10 Display settings but that seems to have no effect on AL but works on most other programs/menus/etc. I get that a zoomable feature like with the readmes isn't feasible, but how about two or three grid text size choices somewhere in AL's settings? I realize the row heights would need to expand/contract according to text size which may be a problem, but I'm thinking spreadsheets used to do this automatically & this might be something available with your current resources. But if there could be this capability it might help a lot with all the different resolutions & scalings out there nowadays.
Ramone on 19/4/2019 at 20:53
Quote Posted by Dahenjo
@Ramone - a lot depends on your screen resolution and any scaling settings in effect. In Win10 I'm using 3840x2160 UHD at 175% scaling and the text size of the AL grid is on the small side but readable. If I set scaling to 200% the grid text size is about perfect in AL but then it's too big in some other apps, menus, etc so 175% is best for me overall. I don't know your situation or if you did all these things, but maybe try scaling things up a bit if possible & see if it works with the rest of your setup.
@Fen - I also thought of this during testing and we did discuss scaling a bit but I thought it might need to be dealt with on the user's end. I've tried changing font size ('Make text bigger') in Win10 Display settings but that seems to have no effect on AL but works on most other programs/menus/etc. I get that a zoomable feature like with the readmes isn't feasible, but how about two or three grid text size choices somewhere in AL's settings? I realize the row heights would need to expand/contract according to text size which may be a problem, but I'm thinking spreadsheets used to do this automatically & this might be something available with your current resources. But if there could be this capability it might help a lot with all the different resolutions & scalings out there nowadays.
Hi Dahenjo, I'm using Win7 at 1920*1080 and I was sure I was at 125% already, but I checked just now and I was at 100. So now at 125 AL is perfect. Thanks.
I like your idea of two or three choices anyway
FenPhoenix on 19/4/2019 at 21:01
I wish I had a high-DPI monitor so I could really dig into this stuff properly. :( WinForms' scaling capability is inconsistent at best, and it's not helped by the fact that it's physically impossible for me to change my DPI, so I can't test anything the documentation says anyway. I'm seriously considering starting a test branch where I swap out the UI for Qt or something, where DPI support is perfect and it's even cross-platform. That would even eventually - if I can ditch the RichTextBox dependency - make Linux support possible. But anyway, that's a medium-term thing at least.
Dahenjo on 20/4/2019 at 00:59
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
I wish I had a high-DPI monitor so I could really dig into this stuff properly. :( WinForms' scaling capability is inconsistent at best, and it's not helped by the fact that it's physically impossible for me to change my DPI, so I can't test anything the documentation says anyway. I'm seriously considering starting a test branch where I swap out the UI for Qt or something, where DPI support is perfect and it's even cross-platform. That would even eventually - if I can ditch the RichTextBox dependency - make Linux support possible. But anyway, that's a medium-term thing at least.
No prob, I just wondered if the 'non-zoom' text size idea might be within the scope of current resources. It's not an issue at all but more of a potential feature expansion if the opportunity arises. Also don't know if that many are running at high resolutions where this might come up.
Hope you can get or try out a UHD monitor anyway because the level of detail is so nice, think I might have trouble going back to 1920x1080 now.
FenPhoenix on 20/4/2019 at 01:47
Quote Posted by Dahenjo
No prob, I just wondered if the 'non-zoom' text size idea might be within the scope of current resources.
Actually it's setting the zoom itself that's the problem; it's no difference whether you set it with the mousewheel or with an option button. The cell text, the cell area itself, the column header text and the column header area all need to be scaled separately and kept in ratio to one another. Un-resizable image columns (so Finished and Rating) need to be accounted for. Rows can't have their size changed on the fly; they need to be removed from the list and regenerated. Minimum column widths need to be scaled up too. Images will become blurry when scaled up (not the end of the world, and if I want to be fancy then I can implement a system that picks different scales of images depending on the zoom, in order to keep performance up when they're small, but that's just the perfectionist in me talking). I actually did a quick-n-dirty test that shows promise: cell fonts and cell vertical area resizes correctly, but a lot of work is still needed. I believe it can be done though.
Dahenjo on 20/4/2019 at 18:37
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
Actually it's setting the zoom itself that's the problem; it's no difference whether you set it with the mousewheel or with an option button. The cell text, the cell area itself, the column header text and the column header area all need to be scaled separately and kept in ratio to one another. Un-resizable image columns (so Finished and Rating) need to be accounted for. Rows can't have their size changed on the fly; they need to be removed from the list and regenerated. Minimum column widths need to be scaled up too. Images will become blurry when scaled up (not the end of the world, and if I want to be fancy then I can implement a system that picks different scales of images depending on the zoom, in order to keep performance up when they're small, but that's just the perfectionist in me talking). I actually did a quick-n-dirty test that shows promise: cell fonts and cell vertical area resizes correctly, but a lot of work is still needed. I believe it can be done though.
Thanks for looking into it Fen, may The Builder bless you!
Sorry, I had no idea how involved it would be so please give it a pass if it looks too problematic or might mess up stuff that's working great now. I also thought of making the default text size slightly larger (probably involve row/column changes too but still as the one-sized default) but then on lower res screens &/or different scaling settings it might look too large. To be practical as a feature under varied usage scenarios it would likely need to be something like default/normal, one step larger, and one step smaller.
