Author Topic: problem with size of Layout on second monitor  (Read 3164 times)

Linker_Split

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problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« on: September 24, 2011, 06:08:09 AM »
Hello folks.
I'm having a serious problem here.
I have a home PC and a laptop.
When I'm at home, I've created a layout for my poker room with my laptop connected with the  23" monitor which has a 1920x1080 resolution.
But my Laptop can only set the secondo monitor's resolution to 1600x1200 max.
So what happen: when I go to my card room and connect my laptop with the 42" monitor, layout appears waaaaay big and doesn't fit the screen!
That's a real painful problem because I tried everything but nothing happened, and I'm forced to set another layout up (the default one for example fits perfectly whatever monitor I use!)

Can you guys help me fixing this?
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 06:11:28 AM by Linker_Split »

Stuart Murray

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2011, 06:21:02 AM »
You should change your extended displays to match each other for continuity, by changing the windows display settings.  In windows 7 it is right clcik on desktop, followed by Screen Resolution.

Screen resolutions are always problematic, I found the best way to counteract, the different screens, projectors and cables I use was to have one extended display size which could be handled by any media type, for example VGA can only goto 1024x768 on most screens, but HDMI will go very high on resolution, but because of TD2 not knowing if the screen changes, I found it much easier to stick to 1024x768 across the board on my extended display.

The simplest option I can see for you is to change your 23" monitor resolution on the laptop to 1600x1200 - i.e. a size which is readily achieved by all your extended displays.

Regards
Stuart
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 06:23:01 AM by Stuart Murray »
Stuart Murray

Linker_Split

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2011, 06:28:12 AM »
thank you Stuart.
You know what seems to me?
it seems that If I created the layout using a 1920x1080 resolution, then I can't use that layout anymore for other PC that doesn't support that resolution!
Indeed the laptop can only use 1600x1200 as max res for a second monitor, and so even if I change the res on main windows setting, this doesn't change anything, layout just get bigger and still doesn't fit the screen.
it could be cool if TD could handle this problem automatically

Stuart Murray

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2011, 06:35:54 AM »
oh right, load your layout onto your extended display, close your settings menu and now right click on your layout, followed by Auto-Size........  this will kinda work, so try it out and see if it works for you.  It will not auto size graphics which are overlayed onto your layout however.

Stu
Stuart Murray

Linker_Split

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2011, 07:02:18 AM »
oh right, load your layout onto your extended display, close your settings menu and now right click on your layout, followed by Auto-Size........  this will kinda work, so try it out and see if it works for you.  It will not auto size graphics which are overlayed onto your layout however.

Stu

Wow ty again Stu.
Didn't know there was that option!
TY again :)

Linker_Split

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2011, 04:57:37 AM »
hello folks,
I tried what Stu suggested me, but it didn't fix the problem...
What I've notriced is that the default layout fits perfectle any type of monitors: Corey, can you tell us why?
Why my layout doesn't fix any type of monitors?

jodybingo

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2011, 06:23:23 AM »
Out of curiosity, have you matched your resolution settings in TD2 with windows? On the Preferences tab, click on Extended Display and on the dialog box that is now in front of you there are 2 text boxes that allow you to enter the resolution of the second display in windows. If you set the windows resolution of your second display to 1024X768, you must also set TD to the same resolution.

Linker_Split

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2011, 07:09:26 AM »
of course I did it.
Problem is:
I created the layout on a 1920x1080 screen (my Graphic card can handle that resolution), but the graphic card of my laptop can handle till 1600x1024.
So when loading the layout with this resolution, it doesn't fit the screen, resulting bigger...

Stuart Murray

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2011, 07:47:58 AM »
for extended displays you are always better creating your layout in a 1024x768 format as this resolution is handled by any screen on any adapter on any cable.  You should set your windows extended display size to 1024x768 and then edit your layout until it fits, this can be by reducing the size of fonts and shrinking background pictures to this size.  Once you have done this you will not have a problem again as you will be able to hook up to any screen via HDMI or VGA and set your windows extended display for that screen to 1024x768

I use different extended displays constantly, be it LCD's or Projectors, and I have them all set to 1024x768.

Regards
Stu
Stuart Murray

Corey Cooper

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Re: problem with size of Layout on second monitor
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2011, 10:06:49 AM »
The layout is designed to "stretch" to fit your screen size.  By stretch, it means that every cell will attempt to use as much space as possible.  More specifically, everything is rendered as tables with the widths set to 100% so that it will fill as much space horizontally and vertically as possible.  IE renders columns with as much space as is necessary to display the contents of the column, and then evenly divides the remaining space among the columns, or something similar (might determine their relative size and stretch them so the relative sizes remains the same).

So it's really about the contents of each cell.  I designed the included layouts to fill a 1024x768 screen, since this is [or was] a common screen size that most computers could render.  On a 1920x1080 screen they work because they just stretch to fill the remaining space.  I personally don't think they look good at that size, and to fix it the font sizes should be increased.  Using the Auto-size feature will do this for you.

2.6 beta has a setting to turn off the stretch feature.

I have two ideas in the future for layouts.  Because coding the layout and layout design is a lot of work, I can't say I'll ever be able to implement them, but they are on the enhancements list.  One would be to have a mode in which stretch is not an option, and the layout is rendered not using tables.  This would allow a lot more control over the sizing and positioning of the cells.  The other would be to take this mode a bit further and release the cells entirely from the structure, and allow them to be placed dynamically anywhere you want (you would specify coordinates).  Both of these methods would tie the layouts almost completely to a specific screen resolution (if designed on 1024x768, for example, they probably wouldn't work at all on 1920x1080).  But, I think many wouldn't mind this restriction at all.  This would probably be very useful for layouts that position cells based on a background image.