Text size in RMIR

CyberSimian · Post by **CyberSimian** » Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:16 am

Is it possible to increase the text size in RMIR?

Perhaps most people use desktop computers with large displays, but since I got my first laptop 15 years ago, I have not used my desktop system once (it is still running Windows 2000!).

I have recently got my second laptop, with a 15-inch screen, 1920x1080 resolution, and Windows 10. I found the text in Windows menus to be too small, so I tested various combinations of settings, and found that 125% text size combined with a screen resolution of 1600x900 gives me readable text ... except when I run RMIR.

The text in RMIR is too small to read unless I use a magnifying glass, or put my nose 10 inches from the screen. Is there anyway to increase the text size? If not possible now, perhaps this could be considered as a potential future enhancement? Thank you.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Mon Oct 05, 2020 5:33 am

You can change the scaling of the complete UI (not just the fonts) by adding

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-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2

to the JVM arguments. Replace "2" with something else, if wanted. Java 8 takes integers only; rumors say that future Java versions will take decimal numbers as well as percents.

To use with windows, right-click the shortcut and edit the "Target" line.

I am not sure if if works with all java versions though.

Post by **mathdon** » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:11 am

Bengt, I have just tried this in Win10 and changed the command line in the shortcut to

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"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_241\bin\javaw.exe" -Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2 -jar RemoteMaster.jar

It had no effect. Have I got the line wrong? This is Oracle Java 8, Oracle took over Sun, so the "sun" in the parameter makes me feel it ought to work.

To answer the question about a possible future enhancement, unfortunately it is a Java issue, not one that can be sorted in the RMIR code (as far as I am aware).

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:42 am

It appears that Oracle's Java 8 does not support it. Sorry. But Java 11 (tested with the version included in IrScrutinizer 2.3.0) definitely works, even with non-integer scalings: Assuming you have IrScrutinizer installed with its own Java:

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"C:\Program Files (x86)\IrScrutinizer\jre-x86-windows\bin\javaw" -Dsun.java2d.uiScale=150% -jar RemoteMaster.jar

does work as expected. At least for me...

Right now, I have no suggestion how to tie this parameter to the user interface...

CyberSimian · Post by **CyberSimian** » Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:13 pm

Guys, thanks for the answers (even though they are not what I was hoping for).

I searched for Java 11, and there seems to be some question about whether it requires paid-for licences, or whether that just applies to the development kit:

https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fa ... -trap.html

And as RMIR is free anyway, would licences be required? Who knows!

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:46 am

CyberSimian wrote: I searched for Java 11, and there seems to be some question about whether it requires paid-for licences, or whether that just applies to the development kit:
...

This topic was discussed here.

If you install IrScrutinizer for windows (select installation including JVM), you can use its Java 11 for RMIR, as I showed in the previous message. (I have not tested it extensively though.)

Post by **mathdon** » Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:05 am

After some investigation I have found that the free versions of Java are now at http://jdk.java.net. These are Oracle OpenJDK versions. The earliest release there is Java 14, available for Windows, Linux and MacOS in 64-bit versions only. In case it is not otherwise clear, RMIR runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Java and it loads the native libraries such as jp12serial.dll in their 32-bit or 64-bit versions according to which Java it is running on.

I have just downloaded and installed Java 14 from http://jdk.java.net/14/. It now comes as a zip package rather than an exe installer, with no installation instructions. I used these Java 11 installation instructions. In fact, so far I have only followed step 1 of those instructions, which is to unzip the package into the folder C:\Program Files\Java\. I then manually updated my RMIR shortcuts to point to the new Java for testing. The rest of the installation instructions are for making the new Java be your default version, if you want to so.

Barf's scaling method works perfectly with Java 14. I too have found the text with Java 8 to be smaller than I would like, though I can cope with it. But a scaling of 1.5 works just fine for me.

CyberSimian · Post by **CyberSimian** » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:40 am

Thank you, Barf and Mathdon.

I will try Mathdon's suggestion and install Java 14 (might as well use Java 14 if it works OK with RMIR, in preference to Java 11).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

CyberSimian · Post by **CyberSimian** » Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:15 am

I installed Java 14, and I am pleased to report that the text sizing works as described earlier. The specification of 150% is exactly right for me. Lovely!

I have not tried this combination in depth yet, but it seems to be working OK. Thank you.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Post by **mathdon** » Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:24 am

I have updated Setup.vbs, the setup script for RMIR on Windows PCs, to make it easier to select between multiple Java versions when creating shortcuts and to enable the text scaling described above to be set when a shortcut is created. This revised Setup.vbs is included in RMIR v2.12.5 and will also be in all later versions.

Setup.vbs now takes the Java version from the JAVA_HOME environment variable if this exists. To use this feature, simply set the system environment variable JAVA_HOME to the desired Java path, such as C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_241 or C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-14.0.2, or create this environment variable with such a value if it does not exist.

For Java 11 and later, which are the versions supporting scaling, you will get a dialog box that enables you to enter a scale factor if desired, such as 1.25 or 1.5. If you leave this blank, Java will use the scaling set in your Windows display parameters (1.25 on my machine, for example). Java versions earlier than 11 not only do not support a user-specified scale factor, they also do not use the Windows display parameter. So even without entering a scale factor in Java 11 or later, the text size will be larger than that with earlier Java versions and may be adequate without further adjustment.

chuliu · Post by **chuliu** » Sat Jan 30, 2021 3:36 am

I also installed java 15 on my pc and tried to install the latest rmir with the new setup.vbs. I noticed that I had to set the system enviroment variable JAVA_HOME to c:\program files\Java\jdk15.0.1 with the Java being capitalized. If I set it to java, then the setup.vbs will not run correctly. Just for the reference.