Icons extremely small on MBP Retina Display Windows 8

Hello,

I have just installed Grasshopper in Windows 8 running on a Macbook Pro Retina Display and the icons are extremely small, really tiny to the point of making the software very tiring to use. Is there any way to enlarge them? I have never encountered this problem--just switched to Mac--and I cannot find any sizing options. Any help is appreciated!

Thank you.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 28, 2015 at 4:04pm

I ordered an MS Surface so I can test high resolution displays (as well as touch screens/stylus input). Should arrive here mid-december, though I probably won't be able to seriously dive into this until after Christmas.

Permalink Reply by Sergio Lopez-Pineiro on December 2, 2015 at 2:48pm

Wow! Thank you for sharing this, Vicente. Nice!

Permalink Reply by Kim hauer on November 28, 2015 at 6:14pm

Do you really think Microsoft gives a s__t, if you icons are too small?......LOL!

Your running the Apple OS, which is in direct competition with the Surface pro and WIndows 10 .......Dahhhh!

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on November 29, 2015 at 5:48am

He says he is running Windows 8. The issue has nothing to do with Mac or PC but with newer screens that have very small pixels. Small pixels mean that if you are sitting at a normal distance from the screen they are harder to distinguish.

The main issue is with software developers having to make their application aware that the user might change the scale setting in Windows to make things appear bigger. When this setting is changed some things might change size, like fonts and forms, but other elements might not. If the developer didn't account for this he might set a form element in pixel size unaware that when this setting is changed, the text inside the element will scale, clipping it.

In Mac OS the problem is exactly the same. They can solve it more easily because they only have to support 2 types of resolutions, which one is exactly twice as big as the previous one, so you just have to scale everything 2x (1 pixel becomes 4), just like what i did in my previous post. The disadvantage of this is that you loose pixel density on older software. Windows might be installed in screens with many different resolutions so doing this might not be a good idea since scaling by other than whole numbers will make things look blurry. Cleartype already doesn't work that well even just scaling exactly 2x.

Permalink Reply by Kim hauer on November 29, 2015 at 4:19pm

I agree, You should not be running your Display at 1920 x 1080 if you cant see the text.
alternative:

1. use stronger reading glasses.
2. change the text size to a larger, which requires a reboot.

But I question. Why are you using Win 8 or Win 10, instead of staying with Win7 ?
The 102 page long EULA from Microsoft asks you to accept, prior to the install, should give any thinking person pause, and to think carefully before he or she is accepts the consequences of installing Win 8 or Win 10.

No IT profession would allow any company to install Windows 8 or 10 on their companies computer networks. Imagine for a moment your Doctor installed Windows 10, and now all his daily clients details are shared with Microsoft. Or imagine for a moment your Lawyer installed Windows 10, and now all his daily clients details are shared with Microsoft.

Win 8 or 10 is an open apps shared OS that lacks any sense of network security.... stay with Win 7!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 29, 2015 at 4:59pm

This really isn't the place for a discussion about the general pros and cons of various versions of Windows. Or the general merits of Apple vs. Microsoft. There are lots and lots of discussion board out there set up exactly for this kind of thing.

Permalink Reply by John Brock on January 12, 2016 at 3:35pm

With a System Registry key addition and copying a manifest file to the folder where 64-bit Rhino V5 lives, you can fix the small icon problem on high resolution monitors.

The details are in this new FAQ support document:
http://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/5/video/highres/toolbars_and_text_too_small_in_64-bit_rhino_5_on_high_resolution_screen1

This also fixes the same issue for Grasshopper in 64-bit V5

Permalink Reply by Joaquim Filipe Reis on January 12, 2016 at 4:05pm

Thank you, it works perfectly ! I'm waiting for this almost over an year ! Really thanks for share !

Permalink Reply by Joaquim Filipe Reis on January 12, 2016 at 4:44pm

Unfortunately, I noticed now a small blurry in the icons, but well, it is in fact a great advance.

Permalink Reply by John Brock on January 12, 2016 at 4:57pm

Right. The way this works is Windows assumes that 32-bit applications are not high-resolution aware so Windows automatically applies display scaling.

64-bit applications like Rhino carry their high definition display manifest internally in the application. Rhino's settings were designed before these higher resolution monitors were common.

The registry key tells Windows to use an external manifest if it exists. The manifest file tells Windows the application is not high resolution aware so Windows automatically scales the display just like a 32-bit application.

This is a hack that quickly makes 64-bit Rhino usable on these monitors.

The real fix will be what we're doing in V6, and that is to control the display ourselves but design the settings to work well with these new higher resolution screens.

Permalink Reply by Joaquim Filipe Reis on January 12, 2016 at 5:06pm

Thank you for your explanation, now I understand. I'm looking forward to V6 new settings and optimizations.