Font Size with LV 2014

[Dave_Thomson]

   I'm still puzzled by why LV has a default 15pt font on some newer installs and newer OS's.  I don't know what exactly the condition for this is.  Is it the LabVIEW version, the OS version, some graphical setting within the OS?
   I had pretty much resigned myself to the reality that new installations of LabVIEW on W7 or W8 would have 15pt font by default.  However, I've recently installed LV 2014 on my W7 machine.  When I open a new VI, it says the default font is 13pt!  If I go into the Tools/Options, under "Environment", it says that I am using the default fonts.  When I open the LabVIEW.ini file in a text editor, I don't see any keys related to font size.  So how come this installation of LV thinks that LV 2014 on W7 should use 13pt fonts?

   I would have assumed that I would like this situation, since I've got a lot of code that was developed on XP using 13 pt fonts, so I generally reconfigure LV for 13pt fonts as soon as I install it.  But now I'm working with someone else on a set of code, and her machine (W7) installed LV 2014 with a 15 pt font default!  So now when we move code between us, it gets all mucked up.

    Can anyone clarify this?

Thanks,

    Dave

[Jacobson-ni]

Dave,

LabVIEW chooses the default font size from the OS it is running as explained in the KnowledgeBase article below.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/F9B8974821AFAF9C862578FF00519A52

The wiki page below explains how to use the font INI tokens in LabVIEW.  When there is nothing related to font size in your INI file it reverts back to default (I was only worried for a few minutes after changing my application font to size 9 that it wouldn't change back).  If you do not want your code to get mucked up you can manually change it in environment so that they match, as you have been doing, or you can agree on what fonts you want and copy a font section into each INI file.

http://labviewwiki.org/LabVIEW_configuration_file/Fonts

[Dave_Thomson]

   Thanks for the reply.  Unfortunately, the link didn't really explain how LabVIEW chooses the font size based on the OS.  Is that documented somewhere?  I find it odd that it chose different font sizes on two W7 machines that are fairly similar.  I'm guessing there is some Windows font or display parameter that made the difference.  This matters, since I'm concerned about what happens when our customer gets the code from us.  We can force either one of our computers to conform to the other,  but if we choose differently than what the customer's computer chooses, then the code will still look mucked up to them.  Yes, we can step them through the process of configuring their system to agree with ours, but that is extra hassle that should not be necessary.

    I still think that the change in font size from 13 to 15 one of the most annoying things to hit LabVIEW in a long time...

DaveT

[RavensFan]

LabVIEW defaults to Application Font, Dialog Font, or System Font, which all get their settings from the Windows fonts that are defined defined by the OS.  And Microsoft changed them between XP then Vista, then Win7.  In the LabVIEW.ini file, they show up as "0" "1" and "2" (not sure of the order).

What you need to do is define your settings to be a fixed font such as Tahoma 13 and use fixed fonts throughout your VI's.  I believe size 13 is equivalent to Windows font size 8.  And LV font 15 is equivalent to Windows font size 9.

See Why am I getting different results for the same resolution but different Windows boxes, Win 7 and XP...

and Why does my block diagram change when I copy my code to another system?

[Dave_Thomson]

    Thanks for the additional info.  This is consistent with my understanding of the situation.  Though my understanding of the situtation does have some gaps...  Which is why I'm here in the forum.

    Howevver, two issues remain:
1) Why is LV 2014 on my W7 machine showing application font size 13, but on my colleague's it shows size 15?  Up until this install of LV 2014, I had seen size 15 as the default on all W7 and later OS's.  Your reply, and others, imply that all W7 installs should use size 15.  But on my machine, LV 2014, it shows 13, and the options still show that I'm using LabVIEW's defaults.  E.g. is there some OS setting, such that even on W7, it is possible that LV will decide to use 13?

2) I half like your suggestion that we just define a specifi font, like Tahoma 13.  I'm not sure how that will translate to the customer's machine, though.  If they open a VI we created, I assume they'll see Tahoma 13 fonts on the front panel items.  But if they edit those VI's, will their LV setting prevail, such that they get 15 point font on new controls, or will our settings continue to be applied to VI's that we created and which they edit?  (Granted, I can figure out this second question with a little more testing, which I'll try to do soon...)

Thanks again,

    DaveT

[RavensFan]

Possibly Font Size.  There is a setting for Normal Size and Large Size fonts.  Or it might be a percentage of normal such as 125%

[Sam_Sharp]

I think it might have something to do with the Display Scaling?

[Dave_Thomson]

    So I did some testing.  Yes, the Windows font size adjustment does play into this.  But although some parts of this are getting clearer, other parts get more mysterious.  This is all on W7.  Here's what I found:

   With LV 2014, with no specific custom font settings in LV (searching for "font" in the .ini finds nothing), LV uses 13 when the Windows setting is 100% (small) and 17 pt when it is Medium (125%).  Kind of makes sense.  Didn't try Large.

    In LV 2012 and 2013, I have somehow managed to get the following keys in the .ini files for LV:  BDFont="0" 13 and FPFont="0" 13.  That also makes sense.  That is why/how I am able to consistently use 13pt font in LV 2012 and 2013.

    The mysteries, are:

1) In LV 2012 and 2013, before I adjusted LV, my recollection was that LV used 15pt font, not 13 or 17.  I'm pretty sure that I had Windows set the same, with 100%, small.  So has NI changed how LV behaves?

2) Where did those keys come from?  When you go into Options/Environment, and set fonts, you get the three keys  appFont=...,  systemFont=..., and  dialogFont=...  I can't find anywhere in the Options that can set the FPFont and BDFont keys.  How did I ever get those set?

Thanks,

    DaveT

[Bob_Schor]

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    In LV 2012 and 2013, I have somehow managed to get the following keys in the .ini files for LV:  BDFont="0" 13 and FPFont="0" 13.  That also makes sense.  That is why/how I am able to consistently use 13pt font in LV 2012 and 2013.

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I belive that in the INI setting BDFonds="0" 13, the "0" position can be "0", "1", or "2", which mean "App", "System", or "Dialog" font (or possibly "System", "Dialog", App", or ...).  Should be easy to do a little experiment and figure out the code ...

Bob Schor

[Dave_Thomson]

Fair enough.  But I still wonder how those keys got in the ini file, when the only config options I can find are for the other keys I listed in my previous message...