Banner & Dialog Images Shrinking

[Rick]

On most computers, the MSI works & looks exactly as it should. Unfortunately, there are have been a few computers on which the “banner” image & “dialog” image seems to shrink. The images shows what I am describing.

Please help, this is a time sensitive matter.


Vr,

Rick Zeleznik
Rick@Zelezniks.com
rick@zelezniks.com

[Cata]

They're not shrinking. The dialog is getting bigger. This happens on the computers where the font size was increased until the bitmaps are too small.

There are two solutions:

1) Use bigger bitmaps, making sure they still look ok when cut at normal size fonts. The drawback is the increased size of the installer package. The advantage is tha you'll always have the intended look for your bitmaps.

2) We can give you a custom template.msi that has stretch flags for the banners. The downside is that the stretching algorithm for Windows Installer is awful and the bitmaps will look rather bad at regular size fonts.

Regards,
Cata

[Guest]

If I use a larger picture, it becomes distortde on normal computer. Is there no way to stop the fonts from growing? Why havent I ever seen this on any other install package that I may have come across?



I seem to be having a similar problem with an application written in Visual Basic.

[Cata]

That is because your bitmap is too dependent on the dialog size. You should design it for the *normal* size and add enough borders around to still look good with Large fonts.

No, the fonts can't be prevented from growing. It's an usability feature.

If you want, I can send you the template.msi with stretch flags. But, as I said before, the algorithm makes certain bitmaps to look pretty bad when stretched.

Regards,
Cata

[sbeckett]

Any chance you know what size the bitmaps need to be to handle even the Extra Large font size?

I gather the central area needs to be 503 x 314 pixels. How wide do the borders need to be?

[sbeckett]

the banners are 500 x 63, how much more do they need?

[Mike]

Hi,

Here are some sizes for the images that should leave the image unchanged in case some larger fonts are used:

Normal fonts:

Central area: 503 x 314
Banner : 500 x 63

Large fonts:

Central area: 616 x 390
Banner : 613 x 73

Extra large fonts:

Central area: 708 x 448
Banner : 705 x 83


Of course, it a very delicate matter to design your images with a specific size in a manner that they do not look weird on machines with smaller or larger fonts.

Also, Advanced Installer now allows you to decide whether the images should be resized or not with the dialogs. You can change this option in the "Global Properties" page.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mihai