Compounds Screen doesn't adapt to available space

[RobRedbeard]

Greetings,

Overall, my experience with Pleco over the first 12 hours of ownership has been very positive. I've found most of the interface changes or features that I want are available in the preferences settings. The interface options for when the device is in landscape really reflect the hard work and years of development that has been put into this software. That said, I think I'd like to humbly suggest that I've found an interface bug.

My device is an HTC Touch HD (T8282). For those who are not familiar with this device, it is one of the first devices to boast a WVGA screen in a compact phone format. The resolution is 800x480, the maximum currently supported by Windows Mobile 6.1. I've found that Pleco's windows adapt very well to this size. That is all but the Compounds screen. This is a rather simple fix, and I imagine this can be patched up rather quickly. I think looking at the attached screenshot will make it immediately clear what the problem is.


Thanks,

Rob

 

[mikelove]

This is a known issue - affects the Input screen too, actually, though in that one it can be worked around by putting the handwriting palette on the main screen. Adding auto-resize capability is very complicated, particularly with modal dialogs like Char Info, and tends to bring a lot of bugs with it (there' s always some obscure combination of screen resolution / weird system extensions / etc that can set it off) so it's something we're very conservative about adding, though we should be able to equip a few more screens with it in 2.1.

 

[RobRedbeard]

Mike,
Thank you for your reply. There are various approaches to this. I use CreateWindow() for 100% of my screen elements (I never use resource editors). If you think it's a potential loose feature, than just put a switch in the configuration for layout. I think the compounds screen is one of the most useful study tools in the package, and its usefulness is significantly affected when it's skwished.

Good Luck and thanks for your time. I'll be posting again soon requesting dictionaries.

Rob

 

[mikelove]

I hate resource editors in general, but we use them on Palm and WM out of necessity because there are just too many screens' worth of UI to do otherwise. (we're not using them on iPhone, though, and down the line may transition the WM version over to a dynamically-generated layout too, particularly if Microsoft finally adds support for capacitive touchscreens)

The "Popup word" option makes this a bit less aggravating than this was in 2.0.0, though, since the lists themselves become less important. Really actually the UI on that screen could probably use a bit of a rethink, it might make more sense to have three different Compounds tabs (words starting, words containing, and both) with just one big list per screen and perhaps a combo box to let you customize the sort order - would also reduce load times by only having to generate one list instead of two.