Dashboard Scaling for 42" TV Screen

[Snowflake68]

I have been asked to build a dashboard to fit on a 42" TV Screen in a Warehouse. I understand that Access doesn't scale very well so just wondered if anyone has any suggestions on how I go about building this on my 21" monitor so that when I pass it over it will fill the whole 42" TV screen?

I am hoping to have several reports/forms that refresh independently which isn't the issue its just the scaling that is the issue. Is it just a case of setting the correct resolution?

 

[Minty]

If your monitor is Full HD and so is the TV, then they are actually the same resolution, and will appear identically.

If the TV is 4K then your access app will appear very small. Either
a) obtain a 4k Monitor to build / scale it or (makes a good business case if you want an upgrade
b) use one of the scaling utilities available - search on here for various options.

 

[Snowflake68]

If your monitor is Full HD and so is the TV, then they are actually the same resolution, and will appear identically.

If the TV is 4K then your access app will appear very small. Either
a) obtain a 4k Monitor to build / scale it or (makes a good business case if you want an upgrade
b) use one of the scaling utilities available - search on here for various options.

Thanks for this information. Its very useful.

I have connected my Laptop to my own TV and they are identical in what it displays. However I have mocked up some forms that fill the space on my 21" monitor but when I move the application over to my laptop screen I have to scroll down and across to see all the forms.

I think I need to build to fit my laptop screen and this as you say will be identical on the TV screen. This issue I have with this is that I want to use some datasheets to fit several columns and to do this I will need to reduce the font size but when I set the Datasheet Default Font size within the Access options it makes no difference at all to my datasheets forms, only the Queries in Datasheet view. Is there a way of creating a Datasheet form that has say a font size of 8?

 

[Minty]

Good question - I can't say I have spent much time using a datasheet on a form, I normally just create a continuous form that looks like a datasheet as it is more flexible from a design perspective.

 

[isladogs]

Not sure if this is relevant to your situation of projecting your laptop screen.

The maximum width allowed for an Access form is 22,75 inches (57.79 cm)
See https://support.office.com/en-us/article/access-specifications-0cf3c66f-9cf2-4e32-9568-98c1025bb47c

Even using form resizing code, its impossible to scale up larger than that
Something that MS needs to deal with in the near future but for now you are stuck with that limit

Yes - you can modify the formatting such as font size & name in a datasheet - whilst it is open, alter it from the Home tab

 

[Tieval]

I have found the simple solution for large screens is to leave access alone and reduce the resolution of the large screen until it looks right. After all, in most circumstances you are after a big view rather than a high resolution view.

 

[Mark_]

@ OP,

What is the resolution of the TV and what is the resolution of your laptop/monitor?

If the TV is showing in 1024x768 but your laptop (physically smaller screen) is at a higher resolution, you will be able to develop a form on your laptop that is far to big for the TV to show.

Size of the display isn't the issue, its resolution. Remember that is pixels across and pixels down, so 1920x1080 is far "wider" and "Taller" than 800x600. This is true if your developing on your laptop and want to head to Las Vegas and project on one of the massive outdoor electronic billboards that are 5 stories tall!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

True that. The reason Access works internally in TWIPS is because Access doesn't draw anything. It passes it to a WINDOWS renderer that looks at the sizes and interacts with the screen's resolution settings. This all happens internal to the O/S.

That is, of course, due to the fact that every potential visual output device can have different resolution. Your printer is typically either 200, 300, or 600 dots per inch. Your video screen is some number of pixels high and wide depending on what video card you bought. If you have TWO monitors, they can be different models with different resolutions. Access would never be able to be THAT versatile - but it's OK because they don't have to reinvent that particular wheel. Windows has it covered already.

So as has been said, the question isn't how many inches across - it is how many PIXELS across that will matter, and that depends on the video card, not on the screen.

By the way, Colin (and anyone else), the reason for the limit of 22.75 inches for screen dimensions is a hold-over from early Windows days. The Access folks (and maybe Windows itself) have never upgraded the drawing code. You would figure it out really quickly if you did the math.

One twip is the smallest distance or size you can specify in any Access sizing or placement operation. If you look it up, one twip is defined as having 1440 twips per inch. That way, YOU don't have to diddle in absolute pixels, only in "virtual" pixels. So...

22.75 inches x 1440 twips per inch = 32760 twips width. And of course if you remember your binary scaling, 32767 is the largest possible positive integer in 16-bit terms. So their bloody scaling system still apparently works in INTEGER (vs. LONG) variables.

 

[isladogs]

Thanks Doc. I’d never thought about why that was the limit before. But if so why wouldn’t it also apply to the maximum form length which is about 56 inches IIRC


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Snowflake68]

Thanks to everyone for their input on this. It is very much appreciated. I will digest this all tomorrow and hopefully I will find a solution amongst all of this advice.

 

[nfk]

No matter what you do its gonna be 'hacky', access is not meant to work under such requirements. This is exactly the reason people get all upset when I say Access should be taken off the market, this business rule its not crazy at all... not these days anyway, and this piece of software y'all seem to love irrationally its just not up for the game...

Think about UWP or at least WPF and there you go... thats what you need, perfect scaling and high dpi support. Thats what the customer wants, not a half assed, semi deprecated solution.

Lets think about the customer... not about making money with what we feel comfortable using.

 

[Cronk]

I get a smile sometimes re-visiting client sites where something I developed some years ago and struggled to fit a form into the monitor screens then, now only fill less than half the area with higher resolution/bigger screens.

 

[Mark_]

No matter what you do its gonna be 'hacky', access is not meant to work under such requirements. This is exactly the reason people get all upset when I say Access should be taken off the market, this business rule its not crazy at all... not these days anyway, and this piece of software y'all seem to love irrationally its just not up for the game...

Think about UWP or at least WPF and there you go... thats what you need, perfect scaling and high dpi support. Thats what the customer wants, not a half assed, semi deprecated solution.

Lets think about the customer... not about making money with what we feel comfortable using.

Some of the best advice to dump crappy software and move on to a serious development environment, but not everyone can afford to get Clarion for their development needs. Some are stuck with products like ACCESS or .NET or some of the other kludgy solutions...

 

[nfk]

I recommend CardBox and a projector.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

nfk, at the watercooler your opinions are not well tolerated, but the moderators are more likely to let you rant for a while. Here, I'm going to object to your posting negative ideas in a place where we are trying to help people with what they have in hand.

Long term, if they want to find another solution, they will. But we are here to try to help them fix what they have bought, and your commentary is unwelcome. I will be reporting your post.

 

[nfk]

nfk, at the watercooler your opinions are not well tolerated, but the moderators are more likely to let you rant for a while. Here, I'm going to object to your posting negative ideas in a place where we are trying to help people with what they have in hand.

Long term, if they want to find another solution, they will. But we are here to try to help them fix what they have bought, and your commentary is unwelcome. I will be reporting your post.

Which one? the first one or the second one?

I object the idea that the second post brings nothing to the table. You can use Cardbox and a projector to have it like a large screen showing your user interface. Is it the best idea ever conceived? probably not. Is it functional? absolutely.

And my first post, ok you can flag that one up. But if I get banned because of that I'm gonna f* mad!

 

[Mark_]

Snowflake,

Just as a FYI, if you are not sure of the resolution the end user will be running your application at, you can add a table to help resize based on resolution. Pretty much you have a parent record with default resolution for your application, then child records for each control on each procedure. When you load each procedure you can then move/resize based on the values in your table. This can also be expanded to change captions and change help text. If you need, I think I can make a simple demonstrator for you.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

First post. The second post was actually a suggestion. The first one was pure negativity and not even remotely helpful to a person seeking help. I will not reply to you again in this thread. Take it to the Water Cooler or be silent, but let us help people who want help without posting all sorts of interference. This forum IS about helping people who are asking for help. Or have you forgotten that part of what we do here?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Snowflake68, I'm not a moderator, administrator, or ANYTHING official here, but I must let you know that the unpleasant person signing himself NFK absolutely DOES NOT represent the general population of this forum. We who answer questions on the forum for the most part are friendly people who like to help others. NFK has a misguided sense of what constitutes helping others. You should not consider him as someone whose opinion matters in these forums.

 

[Cronk]

Taken from the Cardbox manual

Introduction 
What is Cardbox? 
Cardbox is a flat-file database program