Weird behaviour on Surface Book 2 - multi-screen resolution

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I've just got a new Surface Book 2 (under Windows 10) and use Sparx with 3 screens, two Desktop screens @ 1680x1050 and the 13.5" Surface book 2 @ 3000x2000 (with scaling set at the recommended 200%).

Most apps handle this pretty OK.  Moving windows between screens adjusts the size of the window accordingly.

However, EA (as usual) does something unexpected.  If I move the Element Browser window (for example) from the Desktop screen to the Surface Book Screen, the physical size reduces dramatically (in order to maintain the pixel size) and a "ghost" window is also created - slightly lower and to the right at what looks like the correct size if the window was being adjusted for the scaling.  The ghost window stops me positioning the window in the correct place and the real window is too small to read without the magnifier!

Anyone else seeing this at high resolutions with multiple screens?

TIA,
Paolo

[Glassboy]

Are you saying that all displays are running at 200% DPI scaling, or are you running mixed scaling?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Are you saying that all displays are running at 200% DPI scaling, or are you running mixed scaling?

Mixed scaling - the Desktop screens are running at 100%

But in a case of PURE EAUI, while the windows are "empty", you see the effect I mentioned in the OP.  I had EA open but without a repository open.  BUT, if you then actually open and use the repository and populate the window with REAL data, it miraculously scales and populates correctly!  This is also true of the other windows I tested.

Without EAUI, life would be SO boring (and productive)! 

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

In the immortal words of the advertisement...  "But wait, there's more!"

If you now try to move/resize the populated window it reverts to the unscaled version!

Sheesh!

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Related to this topic,  I seem to have lost the Relationships Window off-screen.  How can I get just this window back onto a visible screen without affecting the others?

I tried "futzing" with the workspace setting file from a Workspace where the Relationship window was visible and on-screen but to no avail...

TIA,
Paolo

[qwerty]

Connect a second monitor.

q.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Connect a second monitor.

q.

I already have 3!  The window is NOT on any of them!

Paolo

[Sunshine]

Related to this topic,  I seem to have lost the Relationships Window off-screen.  How can I get just this window back onto a visible screen without affecting the others?

I tried "futzing" with the workspace setting file from a Workspace where the Relationship window was visible and on-screen but to no avail...

Oh boy I feel your pain. Had similar issues with resolution with my Lenovo Yoga and Sparx EA Resorted to setting the laptop screen to the same resolution as the desktop screens. I think with the new QHD resolutions Sparx EA has some scaling issues. I reported this earlier this year and thought they had fix it.

With regard to the relationship window you might be able to use the windows keys to move the window. Sorry working on my Mac at present so can't try any of these to double check.

option 1.
Hold down the ALT key.
Press SPACEBAR.
Press M (Move).
A 4-headed arrow will appear. When it does, use your arrow keys to move the outline of the window.
When you are happy with its position, press ENTER.

Option 2
Press and hold the Shift key and right-click the app's taskbar icon.
Select Move in the context menu.
Use the left, right, up and down arrow keys on the keyboard to move your window. When you have moved the window to the desired position, press Enter.

Option 3
Press Alt + Tab and select the app's window thumbnail. The app window will become active, but still not visible.
Press Alt +   Space  , then press M. This will activate the Move option of the window.
Use the left, right, up and down arrow keys to move your window. When you have moved the window to the desired position, press Enter

Option 4
Alternatively try disconnecting the monitors and the windows might align into visible view on the laptop screen.
Pin the window within the main window of sparx EA then connect the monitors again.

[Glassboy]

Are you saying that all displays are running at 200% DPI scaling, or are you running mixed scaling?

Mixed scaling - the Desktop screens are running at 100%

This may not be a strictly EA problem.  I was recently helping out with some debugging and it looks like things can get weird with mixed scaling and surface screens.  In the advanced systems settings you can turn off a lot of the visual effects like windows animations (sorry can't tell you the exact menu 'cause my work laptop is locked down).  Try setting it to performance so all the visual effects are turned off and try again.  From my experience that will make scaling problems go away or get much much worse :-)  If it does make a big difference you can then progressively activate the effects until you find what is causing the window to misbehave.   

[Eve]

Unfortunately, this is a Windows issue.

If you want to know the details... EA declares itself as single DPI aware. What that means is that EA is only expected to handle a single DPI scaling for a session. It is Windows responsibility to scale any API functions that involve window/screen dimensions when they apply to a monitor with different scaling from the default.

Unfortunately, there appears to be some situations where Microsoft didn't get that right. One is the rendering of the non-client area (outside edge) of windows on secondary monitors. This impacts the visual styles that draw a colored glow around a dialog or floating window. Other times the windows themselves don't get scaled correctly. Unfortunately, EA itself can't detect that you are using multiple resolutions. Windows tries to protect it from the information that it declared it can't handle, so the results of the APIs to detect that kind of thing are fabrications.

The only other option is for EA to declare itself as fully DPI aware. But the impact of that is that we need to rescale everything dynamically as you move windows around etc. For now that's not feasible, so we're left with the behavior you have seen.