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OpenArena Contributions => Idea pit => Topic started by: Gig on December 23, 2017, 05:21:58 AM



Title: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 23, 2017, 05:21:58 AM
Hello, everyone!
Considering the console text looks smaller and smaller as the screen resolution goes up, I was wondering if there is some way for users to set console font size to compensate it?
And if not, do you think it may be possible to add it?
I don't know if there is something about it in UI3, but it sounds like something for engine...

I possible, for both the "real" console and for the "console box" in the upper left corner while playing...


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 26, 2017, 09:42:07 AM
Maybe a cvar set to 1.0 by default, with 0.5 meaning half size, 2.0 double size, etc? Or specifying the font size in a more usual way, like 10 or 12 (pt)?
Or maybe even automatically adapt to resolution (may have some drawback?)?


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 28, 2017, 02:56:27 AM
Let's try to bring some screenshot to better explain:
These screenshots have been taken with 0.8.8 Windows binaries.

Here we have "r_mode 3" (640x480) and "r_mode 8" (1280x1024), both showing in-game console feedback (upper left corner) and the "proper" command console.

Gamecode is 0.8.8 baseoa.

IMPORTANT: By uploading the screenshots to the forum, I realize seeing them here does not really give the right feeling about the smaller text, because the images are shown with the same DPI and the text looks like the same size.
You have to download them and view them FULLSCREEN to get the difference.
Then maybe it may be faster for you to open up the game and do some tests yourself...


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 28, 2017, 03:08:53 AM
And now at FullHD (1980x1020) resolution, still baseoa.

I also add two screenshots taken from ":F ctf for GENIUSES" server (also known as "stupid ctf", which runs a mod known as "failsafe", IIRC... it downloads it in a mod folder simply called "CTF", which is not very wise IMHO), -in mode 3, 640x480- which shows that some mods did some change to the "console notification area" in upper left corner: in this case, they moved chat text and some other messages a little lower, and the rest of console notifications (on the top) have got a bit smaller font.

Considering this, than maybe we would need two different cvars, one engine-side to set the real "command console" font size, and one gamecode-side to set the "console notification area" font size (and that third party mods may simply ignore to avoid conflicts with their own HUD customizations).


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: fromhell on December 28, 2017, 10:49:07 PM
the holidays are the best time for feature requests.


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 29, 2017, 02:39:30 AM
the holidays are the best time for feature requests.
Every time is a good time for an improvement suggestion! ;D The "idea pit" section is here for that!  :)

The fact that during holidays people may have some more or some less time than usual to think about it, depends from person to person. ;)

UPDATE: In the screenshots in the above posts, probably the text from "failsafe mod" looks worse than the other screenshots at the same resolution due to that mod being based upon old 0.8.1, while later OA versions changed fonts to avoid the "blur" problems described in this old thread: http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=3187.0


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on September 22, 2020, 01:31:05 AM
I just noticed this changelog in a Quake3e release:
https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e/releases/tag/2020-09-21
Quote
Client: automatically rescale console chars height for resolutions greater than FullHD
I haven't tried it (so I don't know if it only applies to actual console or also to the console notification in upper left hud) and I would like to be able to enlarge fonts also at FullHD resolution (and btw I don't have a screen bigger than FullHD)... but it may give some hint about how to approach this matter.

Uhm... Looking at this commit https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e/commit/28b15cdee304da7d78e29bc207bafa34672011a2
it looks like that change is quite small, so probably they had already implemented a way to scale console fonts, and this commit only applied an automation to it.


Title: Re: A way to change console font size?
Post by: Gig on December 12, 2021, 11:40:55 PM
Quake3e just updated their code: while before they automatically scaled up console font to resemble the text size of FullHD in case your resolution was higher than that... now, also considering that at fullhd the text was already quite small, they replaced that mechanism with a cvar (con_scale) which allows users to set their own scale, if they want to enlarge (or shrink, I guess) console font.
(Commit (https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e/commit/2bdc3692a7d7fbb9af4297c78762c1ef1f9bcb85) and see their github issue (https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e/issues/129) for info).
I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds nice.

As their project only aims at engine and not gamecode, their change only affects console and not the text in the upper left corner, anyway it may give some hint about how to create our own version, possibly for both console and in-game, maybe something like com_textScale?