Ability to change font size for search results, etc?

There are still a number of places in Logos for Mac (search results being the one that "hurts" the most as I use it most often) where the font size is really small (at least on my 17" Macbook Pro at 1920x1200) and the font size cannot be increased.

Any word on when this will finally become available on the Mac version?

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Melissa Snyder

Checking on this.

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

There are still a number of places in Logos for Mac (search results being the one that "hurts" the most as I use it most often) where the font size is really small (at least on my 17" Macbook Pro at 1920x1200) and the font size cannot be increased.

Any word on when this will finally become available on the Mac version?

Not in 4.2a. Unfortunately, there is an Apple bug that occasionally crashes our app when rendering text. (See http://community.logos.com/forums/t/29052.aspx and http://community.logos.com/forums/t/23056.aspx for cases where Mac users have experienced this). Apple has confirmed this as a known bug but hasn't fixed it. As a consequence, adding text scaling to the app would cause more crashes, because we'd encounter this bug more often. We're looking at working around the bug, but since it involves doing our own text layout, it's rather involved and not something we can throw in. Once we fixed the text layout and rendering, then we can add the font scaling.

Stuart Robertson

How do other programs that allow font sizes to be user-selectable (and which show items in lists, like search results) avoid this Apple bug? And, does this mean that until Apple fixes their bug there will be no way to increase the font size of search results? That might mean never... Any chance you can provide a rough estimate on this? Are we talking 3 months time, 6 months time, 1 year or never...? I use search a lot and the results font is very small at 1920x1200... same for passage comparison, passage guide, etc - all of which I use frequently and squint as I do.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

... font is very small at 1920x1200 ...

One option is using system preferences - change display resolution to smaller value (effectively magnifies everything so squinting not needed).

Also, Mac OS X Lion (10.7) arrives this summer => http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

Keep Smiling [:)]

Stuart Robertson

One option is using system preferences - change display resolution to smaller value (effectively magnifies everything so squinting not needed).

And have everything go blurry, and reduce the amount of space available to put texts alongside one another. Yeah, I know about changing screen resolutions. But that's a fairly "brute force" approach to the problem. I use tools like Scrivener for writing, and have all manner of font sizes in Scrivener, in various quickview panels, etc. with hyperlinks, rich formatting, etc, and yet have never had a single crash with Scrivener. It's performance is stellar, and I can control every single font size in the entire app... it is a true joy to use while writing.

I guess I'm just having a hard time getting my mind around why this is such a big challenge. I've done a fair bit of Cocoa development and the Cocoa text system provides many ways to get things done. The goal is "parity with Windows" and while printing support is great, basic functionality like useability (readability) of search results, power lookup, text comparison, passage guide, etc windows -- the core of the product -- take a back seat (or so it feels), waiting for "Apple to fix their bug".

How does Scrivener, as an example of a very rich UI, get it right?

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

How do other programs that allow font sizes to be user-selectable (and which show items in lists, like search results) avoid this Apple bug? And, does this mean that until Apple fixes their bug there will be no way to increase the font size of search results? That might mean never... Any chance you can provide a rough estimate on this? Are we talking 3 months time, 6 months time, 1 year or never...? I use search a lot and the results font is very small at 1920x1200... same for passage comparison, passage guide, etc - all of which I use frequently and squint as I do.

Perhaps when I said "We're looking at working around the bug, but since it involves doing our
own text layout, it's rather involved and not something we can throw
in. Once we fixed the text layout and rendering, then we can add the
font scaling," I wasn't clear.

We have plans to work around Apple's bug and do our own text layout (outside of resource display where we do all the layout ourselves). Just about every other panel in the app uses Cocoa's text layout, which is why there are problems with Syriac and Hebrew layout lots of places. Another issue is a crash when positioning glyphs we've seen in development that we don't want to foist upon users unsuspectingly when they increase the font size of the text in a panel only to have the app hang.

We hope to add this in the 4.3 beta cycle on Mac, but because it requires changing some of the text layout plumbing. Font scaling is coming to Mac, it's just that on the scale of priorities, it wasn't our highest priority for 4.2a.

Stuart Robertson

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the clear statement of the issues -- I understand the issues much better now and am encouraged that font scaling will ultimately come to L4M. I'm committed to Logos for the "long haul", using it daily as my primary Bible study tool, and all I was really after was some assurance that this issue is still on the table. I'm grateful for Logos v4, especially for the Mac version, and look forward to 4.3 beta, whenever it makes its debut.