Open the Windows registry with RegEdit and check for a key containing "MS Sans Serif" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes. If it exists then delete that key.

Note: Modifying the Windows registry can cause big problems if any mistake is made, so make sure you understand how to use the program before deleting anything.

/Rolf 

I understand that admin types like their status windows in tiny text, but Mercury on Win32 takes the cake, with 4-pixel tall lowercase. All windows and buttons seem to have enough room to increase the interface font size by a good 25%, which would make the text small, but readable. I looked everywhere in config windows and .INI files, and searched online — no mention of font size.

Is there any way (devious or not) to increase the font size in Mercury?

(Note: I *am* talking about Mercury's interface, not about actual email transported by Mercury. Just to be clear. B^)

Thanks for any help.

Mercury uses the default settings in Windows for font size, so if you want to change it you should modify the display settings in Windows.

/Rolf 

[quote user="Rolf Lindby"]Mercury uses the default settings in Windows for font size, so if you want to change it you should modify the display settings in Windows.[/quote]

I just changed my Windows Display Properties font size from "Large Fonts" to "Extra Large Fonts". The only change was in Mercury's window title bar and menus. The actual status subwindows (e.g. "Mercury Core Process") continued to use tiny text for all interface and log text. This was also the case after stopping/restarting Mercury.

So, the question remains: how can I get Mercury to use larger fonts in its subwindows?

Thanks!

In Windows 2000 it's Display properties / Settings / Advanced / General / Display / Font size. A restart of Windows will probably be required.

/Rolf 

As I said, I did change the Windows font size. (No Windows restart was needed.) All my other software was affected, e.g. Outlook Express' folder content list used humongous text. (My current Windows setting was Large Fonts; going one step higher for this test, I selected Extra Large Fonts, a setting which is unworkable in daily usage.) In Mercury, only the title bar and menu (and evaluation notice at the bottom) were affected. The subwindows were not.

Rolf, it seems  quite strange that, even at the largest Windows font setting, Mercury would be almost unreadable. I uploaded a screen capture at http://www.blaqzone.com/Temp/toto.gif . Can you look at it and tell me whether Mercury's text should really be this tiny?

Thanks!

The size should be the same as the standard size used by Windows. But did you really change the right setting? The name can differ between Windows versions. In Windows 2000 it's Display properties / Settings / Advanced / General / Display / Font size, in XP it's something like Display properties / Settings / Advanced / General / Display / DPI setting (haven't got an English version of XP running here at the moment). It's not the setting under Display properties / Appearance.

/Rolf 

Ah, OK - you meant DPI setting, not Font Size. Now we're on the same page.

Regardless whether I change the DPI setting (and restart Windows)  or the Font Size (and restart Windows), the Mercury/32 subwindow text stubbornly remains unchanged. Everything else changes, but not the interface itself or the status messages.

I have uploaded a new screenshot at http://www.blaqzone.com/Temp/toto.gif which shows how Outlook Express (benchmark) and Mercury behave when I change one setting at a time. (Since the image is larger than most browser windows, please ensure that your browser shows the image zoomed in at 100%, not shrunk to fit the screen.)

• Left: I normally run at 96dpi + Large Fonts. See how tiny Mercury's statuses and buttons are? This is what promoted me to begin this thread.
  
• Middle: changing the DPI to 120, while keeping the same physical monitor connected to my PC, makes Windows draw everything larger - title bar, title bar text & icon, menus, and text displayed within Outlook Express' folder list. All of these change in Mercury (even the Evaluation Copy notice at the bottom), except anything in subwindows - buttons, all text, remain the same tiny size.
• Right: staying at 120DPI and adjusting the Windows Font Size down to Normal, makes all text smaller. All text, that is, except anything inside Mercury subwindows.

As this demo shows, Mercury does use the default Windows setting - but *not* for its subwindows, at least not on my machine. Does Mercury behave differently on your machine?

What's the next step? Thanks again for your help.

To test this I've now created a virtual machine with XP sp3 and installed Mercury 4.72. After installation the font size in Mercury is then the same as Windows, and the same as in the host system. I changed the setting Display properties / Settings / Advanced / General / Display / DPI setting to Large size (120 DPI) and restarted the virtual machine when prompted. After restart the font size in Windows in the virtual machine is considerably bigger. The font size in Mercury - both main window and module console windows - has increased correspondingly.

I have no idea why your system should behave differently, though. What version of Windows is it?

/Rolf 

Rolf, thanks for double-checking on your end with an XP virtual machine. I also use XP SP3. Since Mercury works fine on your end, the problem is obviously on my end.

I did make a system font-related change, many years ago. An old program I had, K9, would use the bitmapped MS Sans Serif font, which looked horrible on my then-new LCD monitor with ClearType smoothing. At the time, it seems I set up a font substitution in the Windows registry, to force Windows to use the scalable TrueType "Microsoft Sans Serif" whenever a program like K9 would request the bitmapped "MS Sans Serif". Using ResHacker, I see that Mercury also requests MS Sans Serif. There may be a correlation. Perhaps Mercury reacts badly to the substitution?

I'll temporarily remove the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes] declaration, restart Windows, and see if anything changes on the Mercury side.

Blaq, I have Mercury running on XP SP3, 96dpi and Normal fonts. Relative to the menu fonts and other items in your screenshot, on my screen the font size of the status text and on the button is about twice the size of yours.

A shot of one of my Windows is at http://users.plus.net/QL:00FD278C

Chris

[quote user="Blaq"]I'll temporarily remove the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes] declaration, restart Windows, and see if anything changes on the Mercury side.[/quote]

And, as expected, it works! Removing the MS Sans Serif --> Microsoft Sans Serif substitution allowed Mercury to display its entire interface at normal size. (Thanks, Chris, for the screenshot.)

I'm afraid this thread won't be of much help to any Mercury user, since this seems to be a pretty specialized situation. I'll debug things on my end, investigating why the FontSubstitutes declaration made Mercury puke (and another program ignore it entirely, I noticed). That's a job for a totally different forum, but I'll come back and post a final addemdun once the source of the problem has been discovered.

Thanks to Rolf and Chris for their help.

I have a similar problem on my Sony Vio using win 7 64 bit. Even when I have changed all the font size options (in widows to 150dpi, and in the program options to a font of 29 or 30, the interface is still in what looks like a font size 6 to me. So smal that its unusable.

Native screen resolution . is 1960 by 1240 or so, and usually I can enlarge the text of all programs by using CTRL and +. This works in the help files but not in the  mail program.

i have the same problem. some can someone tell me what should i do?