screen resolution and drop down plugin selection

[Steviebone]

Again first let me say thank you for an excellent piece of software.

I have noticed there are some screen resolution issues with regards to the plug-in selection window. In most resolutions below 1200 x 1024 the bottom part of the plug-in window is lost below the bottom of the screen. In some cases all that is obscured is the three buttons at the bottom of the window but in other cases where there are long lists of plug-ins you cannot get to the plug-ins toward the bottom of the list. Even using the scroll bar you cannot scroll down far enough to see let alone select them.

The only way I was able to get around this problem was to up the screen resolution. This however brings other problems in to play as many of the instrument windows are too small to read easily. Which leads me to another question, is there anyway we can ever have resize or zoom on plug-in windows?

In any event, not being able to select a plug-in in a long list some resolutions is definitely a problem. Unfortunately I don't have a screen capture easily available to me on that machine at this point but if you need to see it I will work on grabbing you a picture.

Thank you again for what appears to be excellent support.

[TiUser]

...interesting finding.

Windows Vista comes with a magnifier tool in it's accessories. It might be a bit cumbersome to use but it's there.

I also sometimes struggle with these VST GUIs. There seems to be no guideline on sizes. Some instruments use 800x600 or 1024x768 basic size, others any fancy own windowing - like Moog Modular V. Effects use any size the developers just liked...

That's of course no fault of Cantabile...

[Steviebone]

well my concern was not so much for the instrument windows as for the drop down menu for plugin selection. This may be a machine specific issue. I am looking into that.

[TiUser]

...thing I understood your initial concern.

I'm myself writing a bit software and I've stumbeled across the same "problem", managing any combination of screen resolution - and even more than one screen... Windows does not handle screens too well - It's tough to write software taking care of all possible combinations. Usuaally there is trouble when a screen's width is less than 800 pixel... you may ask does this occur? Seldom, but it can... just use a 1024 x 768 in portrait orientation - like I do with one machine - and you'll see...

I've checked the pen input of windows vista - cool, but works right now only on the primary screen... I haven't found any way to move this to my secondary screen - which is my touchscreen... Either MS didn't consider this situation or has well hidden how to set this up...

With popups I agree - these should always be completely visible... but except the standard context menu thing which adjusts itself the programmer has to manage that on other non standard stuff... It's no excuse, I just want to say that programmers can't always think on everything in the first place... but I agree this is an issue and should be addressed.

Brad, please take a look on this issue.

[Steviebone]

After further testing this is indeed a machine specific issue. I loaded the software on a couple of other computers and had no problem with displaying any of a number of resolutions, so the problem appears to be with this particular video card or driver.

As for the issue of the VSTI windows themselves, while I agree that it would be nice to have proper cropping and scalable sizing this is probably not something within the host control and is more likely an issue with the instruments themselves. I decided on a brute force workaround using a very large flat-panel LCD screen instead of multiple monitors. Yippie another other toy!

[TiUser]

After further testing this is indeed a machine specific issue. I loaded the software on a couple of other computers and had no problem with displaying any of a number of resolutions, so the problem appears to be with this particular video card or driver.

Strange... Maybe this driver supports some kind of virtual screen size?

As for the issue of the VSTI windows themselves, while I agree that it would be nice to have proper cropping and scalable sizing this is probably not something within the host control and is more likely an issue with the instruments themselves. I decided on a brute force workaround using a very large flat-panel LCD screen instead of multiple monitors. Yippie another other toy!

Well, true, but I guess you never can force all the VST makers to adopt any unique size rules...

With large flatpanels I agree - once you ever have used one you won't want to go back... However for portable setups it's not always a good solution.

I personally have a small 12" second screen with touch because of my experimnts with touch operation and you can get some smaller touch monitors for reasonable prices. It's about the size of the new Novation Launchpad - maybe a bit thicker and might need a kind of holder.

BTW: the new Novation Launchpad seems to be a great new toy when your'e looking for something like that and builing an own thing with the Monome project stuff isn't your thing... not to say that novations industrial version is cheaper, has 3 colors per pad and comes with some software.

[bradr]

I've tried reproducing this on a number of machines, but haven't been able to repro. A couple of this:

1. Can you post a screen shot? (You can just hit print-screen key to capture screen and paste into Paint)
2. You mention multiple monitors - it could be related to this, what if you switch back to single monitor?
3. Any chance you have other monitors enabled in display settings that aren't physically attached?
4. Finally, could be problematic display driver - but very unlikely.

[TiUser]

Sorry, maybe I've messed up Steves original question... which was about the VST patch selector popup...

2. You mention multiple monitors - it could be related to this, what if you switch back to single monitor?

I don't think so but I could reproduce Steves problem on my small secondary screen with 800x600 pixel resolution.

It happens in both modes - the multi line VST patch selector and the list VST patch selector. It looks like the algorithm expects the screen to have a certain minimum height... if there is not enough space to put the popup on top it is painted below - regardless if there are enough pixels or not - the bottom of the list is clipped in case, instead of resizing the popup.

On my main screen with height of 1080 pixels the problem seems not to occur.

3. Any chance you have other monitors enabled in display settings that aren't physically attached?

This is a delicate question... but usually the graphics card detects if a monitor is physically attached or not and windows reacts on that... so I can't really imagine what you suspect - but who ever knows reactions of any HW configuration and Windows...

There can be confusion if you address individual monitors by the index numbers windows presents - these change dynamically... you need some dirty hack to identify the screen/graphicscard naming...

4. Finally, could be problematic display driver - but very unlikely.

I don't really think this - see point 2.)

[Edit] ..uuups... the initial question was about the plugin selector... I could reproduce this issue on my small monitor as well...

[Steviebone]

1. Can you post a screen shot? (You can just hit print-screen key to capture screen and paste into Paint)

Well I am on the road at the moment, I will see if I can get someone to grab a screen for you from the trial box. FWIW, on my studio machine where the registered version now resides there are no issues. If I open/expand several racks so that the "new plugin" control is towards the bottom of the screen, the pop-list expands towards the top of the screen (as is normally expected). On the trial box, no matter how far down the control is on the desktop, the list would always expand down towards the bottom of the screen. So I think that may be the underlying problem.

2. You mention multiple monitors - it could be related to this, what if you switch back to single monitor?

No, you misunderstand, I use only one monitor per box. The trial box where I test stuff before it goes anywhere near one of my studio boxes was also a single box with a normal 19" screen.

3. Any chance you have other monitors enabled in display settings that aren't physically attached?

Again, I don't think so. However, as memory serves, I think that machine may have had a motherboard with on-board VGA that was disabled and a higher dollar video card installed in place. Maybe this had something to do with it?

4. Finally, could be problematic display driver - but very unlikely.

Well, if no-one else has reported this problem I wouldn't worry about it. It is operating fine for me now on the box that counts.

Thanks for your response. I will try and get a screen for you just for the record. It may be a few days tho.

[TiUser]

Well, if no-one else has reported this problem I wouldn't worry about it. It is operating fine for me now on the box that counts.

I could reproduce your finding on a monitor with low resolution - you didn't see ghosts. However, I don't use this monitor for Cantabile too.

I'm not sure what happens with Cantabile on other medium resolutions like 1024x768 or 768x1024 portrait or other situations below 1280x1024 landscape/portrait... didn't check this out yet.

[bradr]

OK, I managed to reproduce this but only at very low resolutions (800x600). I've put in a fix that will force the popup back into the visible area of the screen, but the interaction with the mouse is not quite perfect (it tends to select the Favourites category because the drop down button and the popup overlap), but at least the whole popup with scroll bars is visible.

Will be available soonish.

[Steviebone]

OK, I managed to reproduce this but only at very low resolutions (800x600). Will be available soonish.

Kewl. The trial box was running higher than 800x600 for sure though. Could be that the monitor itself was weird (pronounced "older")...

[TiUser]

OK, I managed to reproduce this but only at very low resolutions (800x600). ...<snip>... Will be available soonish.

Thanks!

I've experienced too that managing almost any screen resolution in software is some effort... In general 800x600 is kind of a basic standard resolution and I think bugs that appear here should be fixed.

Next basic resolution to check is 1024x768... remember that Openlabs Miko/Neko have this...

Finally I've stumbled across resolution issues with my own development stuff too, just think of an 1024x768 screen in portrait orientation... there you even have just 768 pixels width... I ended up with some own multi screen management to keep at least some control...