Icons too small on r2.0.3 for OX

• Apr 7, 2016 - 21:44

I recently have updated Musescore to r2.0.3 on a Mac and, in comparison to
r2.0.2 all icons look very small. I have enlarged the menu bar ones (in
Preferences/General/icon size) but no way for Palettes panel ones. How can I get it?


Comments

Which model of Mac are you on, and what size / resolution monitor are you using? MuseScore should now be automatically detecting your monitor reoslution and sizing things appropriately. 2.0.2 did not, so depending on your screen size & resolution, your icons might actually have been too big or too small in 2.0.2, so the sizes in 2.0.3 should now be correct. It's possible something unusual about your system configuration is interfereing with this, which is why I'm asking for more information.

Please find attached pictures about both releases, 202 and 203, on the same Mac and features of it.
As I told previously, through Preferences/General I am able to enlarge icons in the Menu bar but not in the palette.

Attachment Size
MS202.pdf 218.53 KB
MS203.pdf 189.81 KB
Mac.pdf 42.56 KB

In reply to by JAGP

That definitely looks like for for some reason MuseScore is not correctly determining your screen resolution. The information you posted doesn't include the screen size or resolution - those are the important things here. Is it a laptop? Is the monitor one that came with it or one bought separately?

Probably we should add anew command line option to allow you to specify the resolution manually in case it your OS does not report it correctly. We do have a "-x" option that allows you to specify a scaling factor, but it probably won't do exactly thr right thing for your particular. Worth experimenting with, though. Just start MuseScore from the command line in a terminal window and add "-x 2" to scale things by a factor of two.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

This is funny because on my Mac it is the other way round: 203 shows somewhat larger. To be precise: the icons on the menu on top are larger, the palette seems the same in both versions.
(Macbook Pro from 2010, 13 inch, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; screen resolution 1280 x 800--at least I assume these numbers mean resolution).
The difference is not massive in my case. I installed 203 and went on with my project as smoothly as you could wish.

In reply to by azumbrunn

Yes, slightly larger is what I would normally expect. The fact that 2.0.2 did not take screen resolution into account generally meant that some systems would display icons too small - smaller than they were designed to be, smaller than they would have looked on other systems. The changes for 2.0.3 should make the sizes be more consistent across systems, so that things display at the correct sizes regardless of your actual screen resolution.

It is a Mac desktop with the original built in screen, 22 inch. size and 1920X1080 resolution.
Pay attention to the files I sent before. The size of the main screen and different windows are exactly the same on both rel. The problem is located in the icons inside the palette, i.e. no way to see the different dynamic possibilities

In reply to by JAGP

Yes, I did understand that the difference is with the palette icons. But I also see a difference with the score itself. That's actually the easiest way to ascertain what "correct" is: with the zoom set to 100%, the size of the score on the screen is supposed to be exactly the same size as the actual sheet of paper it will be printed on. In previous releases, this would either be big or too small depending on your screen resolution. The size of the palette elements is generally supposed to be the same as they would appear in the score as well, although some palettes are set to delberately use larger or smaller elements.

From what I can see, the problem on your system is that MuseScore may have misunderstood your screen resolution and is therefore making tthe score itself too small on your screen - with zoom set to 100%, it is presumably smaller on screen than the actual print would be. And because the score itself is too small, that is why the palettes are also too small - they are scaled to match the score size. But it's hard for to judge for sure, because I am looking at your images on my much smaller monitor.

Can you try setting your zoom to 100% (I see you have it set to 160% currently) and get out a ruler and tell me the actual size of My First Score on your screen? Also got to Layout / Page Settings and tell me the page size reported there (should be either Letter or A4 depending on your system configuration). I want to find out just how far off the sizes are from what they should be.

I'd also like you to try running from the command line using the "-d" option, and tell me what gets reported in the terminal window for the "DPI" values (logical and physical). If your screen has a 22" diagonal, and a resolution of 1920x1080, that *should* work out to a physical DPI of around 100, which is quite standard. If in fact your score is displaying much smaller than it should (and with it, the palettes), then I'm guessing this is because MuseScore is thinking your resolution is lower than that. But maybe we'll find out it really is the correct size, and you had just become accustomed to an abnormally large size before.

If you press the "+" button at the bottom of the Palettes window to create a new workspace, you will then be able to edit the palette properties by right clciking any individual palette. In the Palette Properties window you will see a "Scale" setting that for many palettes is 1.0 (meaning the element displays the same size in the palette as in the score). For some palettes - like Time Signatures - it is set a little smaller. For others - like Note Heads - it is set a little larger. You can get larger palette elements by increasing these numbers and thus work around the problem.

Please find attached picture of r2.0.3 main window.
As you say, icons size in palette and editing page with a scale of 100% are similar.
In the screen of my desktop the page size is 8x11,5 cm.
I have created a new palette and applied Scale in Properties as you suggest: the result is that, regardsless the value I put in Scale, it always reduce the size of icons; even more, this approach has to be applied line by line in the palette, and no way to apply it to Basic or Advanced Palettes.
By the way, how to erase the Palette I have created just for test.

Sorry; with the attachment.

Attachment Size
MS 2.0.3 bis.pdf 138.33 KB

In reply to by JAGP

So, the page is supposed to be 210mm wide but it is actually only 80? That would seem to suggests that MuseScore thinks your screen resolution is only about 40 DPI instead of the usual 100. Can you run from the command lone in a terminal window to see if that is what is im fact reported? It would be very helpful in diagnosing the problem.

I also note that 8x11.5 is the correct size for Letter page, in inches. It is remotely possible that somehow *that* is the source of confusion here.

Problem solved!

I have a TV set as a second monitor permantly connected to the computer, regardless being switched on or off. This TV has the same resolution as the computer screen (1920x1080).
Because of that, the computer automatically optimised the screen features for that monitor.
Now, I manually have turned back, optimising it for the computer screen and then MS2.0.3 is seen correctly.
By the way, there is not any significant quality change on the TV screen.
So, I do not understand this strange behavior with two different monitors but with same resolution, but I don't care, the problem is solved!

Thanks and kind regards for your support!

So far what I think I have learned is the following:

1) Previous releases (all of them) had a bug where the icon sizes (and score size) would be wildly different from system to system depending on your screen resolution. This is (mostly) fixed in 2.0.3, so everyone should be seeing the same icon sizes, but a few people had become accustomed to the old sizes even though they were wrong and are perceiving the new sizes to be wrong. If your score on screen is the same as the actual paper, though (with 100% zoom), you are seeing the correct sizes - probably for the very first time.

2) A couple of people are seeing wrong score sizes, and with that, wrong icon sizes as well. That applies to the toolbar icons as well as the palette, a few other places in the GUI as well probably. As far as I have been able to tell, these seem to be cases where the OS is reporting the incorrect monitor resolution to Qt or Qt is reporting the incorrect value to MuseScore. In the cases I have been able to understand thus far, this seems to be because there are *two* (or more) monitors involved with different resolutions, and MuseScore is trying to use the resolution from one monitor to display on the other, which will result in sizes being wrong.

If anyone who is having this problem is able to compile MuseScore from source, please let me know so I can walk you through a few potential solutions.

Meanwhile, as a *workaround*, try the "-x" command line option. Passing in "-x 2" will double the size of certain elements, "-x 0.5" will halve them, etc. It might not do *exactly* the right thing - it might not affect everything it should, or it might affect things it shouldn't - but it should be an improvement, I think.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Running the 2.0.3 appimage 64-bit, on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS all up-to-date (but using I3 window manager) on a laptop with only the built-in display (no external monitor).

* The icons on the control toolbar and notes toolbar are too big.

* The icons in the palettes are too big.

* The width of the page at 100% scaling is the same as an actual piece of paper.

* Running with -x 1 gives icons of a good size for toolbars and palettes. Running without -x gives the large icons in all places.

* With -x 1, the Grace Notes palette icons are bigger than comfortable, and the Repeat & Jumps and Text pallet icons are a bit too small.

* Running with -d gives the following output:

DPI 72.000000
Information for screen: "eDP1"
Available geometry: 0 0 1920 x 1080
Available size: 1920 x 1080
Available virtual geometry: 0 0 1920 x 1080
Available virtual size: 1920 x 1080
Depth: 24 bits
Geometry: 0 0 1920 x 1080
Logical DPI: 96
Logical DPI X: 96
Logical DPI Y: 96
Physical DPI: 141.951
Physical DPI X: 141.767
Physical DPI Y: 142.135
Physical size: 344 x 193 mm
Refresh rate: 60 Hz
Size: 1920 x 1080
Virtual geometry: 0 0 1920 x 1080
Virtual size: 1920 x 1080

The physical size is the same as the size of the display, measured with a ruler.

When running with -d, there are strange, light-grey staff lines all over the page. But that is a different problem.

In reply to by ironss

Can you post a screen shot showing the icons and My First Score at 100%? From your description, it sounds likely that the icons are actually the correct size - they were just too *small* in previous releases on some systems and you may have become accustomed to that. Compare the size of the staff of My First Score with the size shown in the Key Signatures palette - they should match. Also be sure you aren't using an older customized palette - try Help / Reverrt to Factor Settings.

"-d" is supposed to showing those extra lines, BTW - they are an aid in debugging, which is the purpsoe of the "-d" option. It's not an option you should use *except* when helping debug problems.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Screenshot from running MuseScore-2.0.3-x86_64.AppImage -F

The width of the paper is correct, and running with -d shows that Musescore gets the right value for monitor DPI, etc.

I consider that

* the icons in the file-control and note entry toolbars are too big -- they are much bigger than the size of the drop-downs and text.

* the icons in the Grace Notes palette are too big -- it looks as though it has scaled the grace note to the size of a normal note, and made the normal note huge

* the icons in the Play Panel are too small

The icons in the Clefs and Key Signatures palettes are the same size as the document at 100%. However, the icons in the Time Signatures and Barlines palettes are a bit smaller.

I prefer a smaller size, as it lets you see more options. The Key Signatures palette occupies the whole height of the Palettes panel, leaving no space for any other open palettes.

I accept that the size of the icons has changed from previous versions. I understand that this is a subjective matter.

I really like that Musescore actually gets the document (the music) to be actual size when the scaling is set to 100%.

I don't think it is at all important that the size of the icons in the palettes are the same size as the elements in the document set to 100%. That is a decision that the developers have made, but is debatable whether it is the right choice.

I /prefer/ controls (icons, etc) to be as small as possible consistent with being easily readable, so that they do not waste screen space that could be used to show more of the document.

I /prefer/ the sizes of the icons when running with -x 1. I would have thought -x 1 was the default, but perhaps the default is the ratio between internal 96 DPI and actual monitor DPI.

Obviously, these are my opinions. The issues are really quite trivial. The new version seems to work just fine.

Attachment Size
musescore-2.0.3-factory-default.png 145.2 KB

In reply to by ironss

This looks correct. As I said, the Key Signatures palette is the best test, since it is designed to show actual size. Other palettes are designed to show icons bigger or smaller than life. As I mentioned, previous versions of MuseScore had a bug where depending on your monitor resolutin the icons might look either bigger or smaller than they were supposed to, but the size you are showing in your screenshot is the size they were always *supposed* to be, and always have been for people with monitors that use a standard 96 DPI resolution. Your 142 DPI monitor was among those showing the icons too small in the past.

If you find you cannot get used to these correct sizes, or just want to tweak things differently still, prefer different palette configuration, you can customize this - see the Handbook under "Custom palette". Once you create your workspace (using the "+" button at the bottom of the Palette window) you can then right click any palette, select Palette Properties, and change the "Scale". You will note that clefs are currently set at 80% which is smaller than life, key signatures are set at 1.0 which is life size, note heads are set to 1.30 which is larger than life, etc You can change any of these. A few like grace notes and bream properties use special icons, not ordinary score symbols, so instead of the "scale" property, you'll want to change cell size itself - those icons are set up to automatically scale to the palette size.

FWIW, the size of the overall palette window also depends on other factors - like your system font settings, since it needs to be wide enough to display the palette titles. On some systems, the width of the palette is such that the key signatures are nly one or two per row, so they will indeed take up most of the screen. If your system is like that, you can simply widen the palette window (drag the line dividing it from the main score window). I usually resize mine to get 3 key signatures per row, also to get 2 repeats per row (by default I get 2 and 1 respectively).

The "-x" option is indeed the scaling factor compared to 96 DPI. Previous versions of MsueScore had no way to determine the actual monitor resolution so we had to resort to this.

I am tending to have the same problem. But I don't know how to fix it. You guys are mentioning a "-x" option, or "-d" option and I don't quite know what you mean. I tried looking it up and I still don't understand. What are some things that I should include other than the photos that I have at the bottom and the fact that I am using a 1920x1080 screen?

Attachment Size
MuseScore1.png 153.13 KB
MuseScore2.png 181.75 KB

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Problem solved!
I have a TV set as a second monitor permantly connected to the computer, regardless being switched on or off. This TV has the same resolution as the computer screen (1920x1080).
Because of that, the computer automatically optimised the screen features for that monitor.
Now, I manually have turned back, optimising it for the computer screen and then MS2.0.3 is seen correctly.
By the way, there is not any significant quality change on the TV screen.
So, I do not understand this strange behavior with two different monitors but with same resolution, but I don't care, the problem is solved!
Thanks and kind regards for your support!

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