Ok, I am not really complaining...I'm glad to be able to spin dials, or click open the number and type, to morph my models. But are we stuck with the default? (I know there are programs to hide certain dials, and I know I can go into the source files and hack some away.) I mean the size of the dials, and the font. How can I control the font, and is there any way to magically turn them into sliders. How about tear-off sliders you can set where you want and make as big as you want. When you click on one from "figure1" it selects figure1 and the target in question. Then you just click on another floating slider/HugeDial and the selection of figure and bodypart changes. hunh? hunh? We've got this system in Poser where clicking on the bodypart is dubious. Dangerous. Infuriating. So, as compensation, shouldn't there be SuperTearOffDialsOrSliders? I've got this huge LCD have it set to 1920x1200 to get as much Poser real estate as possible. THAT's GREAT. But the fonts on the dials are threatening to retreat to size5, and the mouse precision required to "grab" a dial..... I am in pain. Santa, hear my plea. I been good. ::::: Opera :::::

hmm..this is a common complaint, especially if you're our age (sigh..to be 40 again..;) here's something that may help slightly if you're using Windows XP, but mileage may vary
Go to Start, Settings Control Panel, Display, Appearance, Effects, select Use the following method to smooth edges in screen fonts, then click Clear type
truth be told, I don't think there's a way to do it in Poser, but I'd love to be proved wrong..;)

Thanks pakled, but i've got that setting already.

You know, yes, it's an "over 40" thing, but really what I am describing is UI power that would let anyone of any age work WAY WAY faster, escpecially if you are an animator.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/12/2005 14:02

dadt, that's a good idea which I am entertaining. Interestingly, my LCD can swivel and end up being 1200x1920, and with a second monitor some interesting combos could work. I'd set the resolution of the one with the dials like you, prob 1024x768

I've found that changing the text size in Windows Display Properties (the one under settings, not the one under appearance) makes the text larger in Poser. Unfortunately, this means a lot of longer names get truncated, and not just in Poser.

Message edited on: 12/12/2005 15:38

This might help: Make a backup of Runtime/UI/parmDialPrefs.xml. Then open it in a text editor an search for the lines that have name="name" and name="value". In these lines, find the textSize attribute and change the number after it (default is 12) to something bigger - try 16 for a start. In a similar way, you can change the dial sizes by changing the bottom and rect.bottom values of dialBackground, dial and dialGradient.

Wow, I'm going to have to try that. The Poser text is like Microfilm on my monitor.

Hey...what would happen if I copied the P5 dialprefs to P6? And can I copy anything else?

I really like the P5 layout. The boxes in the library are smaller, but the text is larger. The dial text looks larger, too. With P6, there's a lot of wasted space. Huge boxes, tiny text. :-P

Oh man, stewar, thanks for exposing this preference file. I am now completely customizing my dial panel. Thank goodnes. Here's a toast (I'm drinking Maker's Mark Straight Kentucky Bourbon) to stewar. ::::: Opera :::::

Maker's Mark? Damn, send one over! I ran out of Scotch quite a while ago.

sounds like a plan..wonder if it works in Version 4.

Also check out my dial removing trick - it's here in Tech, but much easier to find on PoserPros, under Poser 5, it's one of the stickies at the top.

What this tweak does is to remove the image of the dials completely - you know what you have to do, so why do you need a picture, or rather, dozens of pictures, to tell you ;-) Poser's UI dissociates hot spots from buttons, it's all done with coordinate hot zones (a la HTML imagemaps). So I just relocated the dial's hot zone to be over the NAME of the parameter rather than the dial. You can scroll left-right (or up-down) just like before, just do it over the name.

Advantage? Well I reduce the height assigned to each parameter now that the dial image is gone. Less vertical space required per parameter. My goal was to get more parameters on a screen, so I had less scrolling to do. But equally the extra vertical space could be used for a larger font. Ideally you'd want to change the font to a condensed one (more height, less width), but my attempts to change fonts have not been entirely successful.

Kewl...thanks! I gave up in P4 with trying to change the colors to make it more readable...this did the trick!

I traded off more dials visible for bigger text. I may go to "planB" later. I have a lot of horizontal room, so I left the dial itself in place (although double-high) but I like your idea of just making the name the hot spot. I also saw that this thing is image-mapped.

Does anyone know how to make the actual clicked-open value bax bigger with a bigger font once it is open? I ran out of energy after punching around things in the "VALUE" section, with no change to the opened box, except position.

Thanks again for the directional stewar.

::::: Opera :::::

bkmrk.

I gave up on the value box. Not saying it can't be done, just gave up looking. Thing is not everything is converted to the new Poser 5+ "XML" format. Lots of stuff is still called as hard-coded pre-P5 executables. I assumed that the value box was one of these. So no easy way to customize. (Hope soemone can show me I was wrong ;-)

Quote - I've found that changing the text size in Windows Display Properties (the one under settings, not the one under appearance) makes the text larger

OMG!!!!! My poor strained eyes thank you !!!!!!!!!!! I can see my bookmarks too!!!

Awesome information here. Bookmarked. Tom

I have to use reading glasses now being 45yrs I like the info supplied, will set my monitors as said and adjust dial settings. Thanks Rowlando

Thanks for the info ! Really great !

Oh wow....Please tell me that this will work with Poser 4?

I dunno..I couldn't find a UI directory as stated above. Didn't look for the file, tho..

I found it. Curious Labs Runtime UI folder

Quote - Make a backup of Runtime/UI/parmDialPrefs.xml. Then open it in a text editor an search for the lines that have name="name" and name="value". In these lines, find the textSize attribute and change the number after it (default is 12) to something bigger - try 16 for a start. In a similar way, you can change the dial sizes by changing the bottom and rect.bottom values of dialBackground, dial and dialGradient.

OMG! What a difference. I changed the size to 14 which seems ideal. Thanks for that tip. I think my days of eye strain are over :)

Sheesh. I just moved my monitor so it was closer to me. I see the dials in all my programs better. [grin]