Will there be UI scaling improvement at one point?

Dorico
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Hi team,

I have not started to use Dorico for real, since I’m waiting for functionality crucial to me.
However, I opened the program today just for fun, and was immediately struck (again…) by some UI peculiarities:

  1. Why is the font size in the fly-out menus different than in the menu bar?

  2. I’m using a 1080 resolution and the panels on the sides and bottom are too big. I realize that UI scaling is usually a problem with hi-res screens, but In my case, there’s just too much grey in the picture and not enough white, it’s distracting from the score.

And a minor point:
3. Why do the note heads in the left panel have different sizes?

Of course nothing in 1. above has any impact on how well the program works in itself, but it bothers me and I think it looks inconsistent. And 2. makes me feel claustrophobic…
Maybe it’s early days enough so that these things can still be changed for the better?

Keep it up and thanks for Dorico!
Cheers,
Benji

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I just tried the light theme, and it makes it somewhat better, without taking away my initial suggestions. Dark theme in Cubase doesn’t bother me in the least, however…
B.

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Benji, I’m afraid I don’t think I have anything more to say to you now than the other times you’ve asked the same questions.

  1. We’re setting the size of the text in the menus to 15px explicitly in our style sheet. Off the top of my head I can’t tell you why this is, but I will find out.

  2. I know you’re a mouse-heavy user, so you will not want to hide the panels, but the docked nature of the panels means that if your window is larger than the panel content, you’re going to get some blank space. There’s nothing to be done about this. We don’t intend any time in the near future to make it possible to e.g. tear off the panels and/or shrink them down.

  3. The noteheads use different sizes so that the buttons can be a consistent size.

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Daniel,
I really appreciate you chiming in, thanks for your answer!

  1. Thanks for double checking!

  2. Blank space is fine, it’s how the UI works, since it’s being populated differently with different selections, fair enough!
    And I can always hide the lower panel separately.
    But why are the buttons for the note heads on the left and for e.g. clefs on the right so big? The are already shaded differently from the right- and leftmost panels, just make them scalable somehow and we’re golden…
    At one point I’ll have to install on my wife’s Surface Pro 4, just to see what it looks like on a hi-res screen… :slight_smile:

  3. Makes sense, thanks!

I also apologize for asking similar questions, it’s just that I find some of the aesthetics suboptimal. But as long as the printed output looks as gorgeous as it does, we’re all good, I guess…

Peace out,
Benji

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Making the buttons in the notes panel on the left and the object creation panels on the right in Write mode wouldn’t be much of a solution, really, as making them smaller would simply increase the amount of grey space you would see on a larger display. The reason they’re as big as they are is to make them as clear as possible on the display, and to provide a nice big click target, big enough for you to use a finger on a touch-enabled screen.

Obviously to some degree whether or not you find Dorico aesthetically appealing is a matter of personal taste. We happen to be pretty pleased with the way it looks, and the design we have ended up with is the result of several years of iterative work. I’m certainly not saying that we will not provide any settings for scaling the UI in future, but it’s not a high priority at the moment.

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Daniel,
No problem, I understand and appreciate!
To put this to rest, for me anyway: Could someone please post a screenshot of a hi-res setup? Like “retina” or 4k or something?
This for me to figure out if my issues will be possibly alleviated with a bunch of new monitors in the future?
:wink:
Thanks,
Benji

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Hi Daniel,
A quick question: Did you find the reasoning behind the various font sizes in the menus?
Thanks!
B.

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Yes, it’s because of the need to set font sizes in the menus that pop up from the various buttons elsewhere in the UI. We’re looking at trying to refine these style rules so that we can leave the default menu size alone.

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Awesome, thanks! :slight_smile:

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Daniel, I’m sorry about the other thread, I had forgotten your answer here… my bad!

EDT: Feel free to delete the other thread! :blush:

Sincerely,
Benji