I just installed the latest beta (.55) and it seems that it only shows in bold fonts. The font was remakedly bolder than I was used to in ver .5 so I manually seleted Times NR Normal but it appeared as TNR bold. I then selected Bold to see if it looked different but there was no change from what Normal font looked like.

Thanks for the bug report.
I did some testing and ended what happens is that when you select a font with the bold style, the bold would not be applied and it would look the same as the same font without the bold style.

This as been fixed on my development version and will be available on the next release.

Thanks,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net

On my system, for all versions beyond 0.50, the font is quite a bit heavier than the earlier versions. I originally thought that it was defaulting to bold but I don't think that is what's happening. In any case, the text is quite a bit harder to read. I am using Times New Roman, 9 pt, Normal. I have tried this same font in both beta 0.55 and 0.56 and they both come out heavier than beta 0.50.

I was going to add screenshots but for some reason, none of my 3 capture programs can capture Desktask's display on the desktop.

That would be nice
have you tried with the "Print Screen" key and paste in paint?
It works here!

If you can't get a screenshot it could be due some program from the graphics card drivers?

But nevertheless, screenshots would be nice to understand better the problem you are stating!

Thanks,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net

Here are the 2 side by side. Ver .56 is on the left and ver .50 is on the right. Both are set to Time New Roman, Normal, 9pt. As you can see, the font on the right is heavier and harder to read.

Glad you could provide the screenshots.

I can reproduce this.
In fact, I think this issue has to do with clear type.

Please do a couple of tests to see if I'm correct.

1) Try ver .56 without clear type enabled, does it display like 0.50 ?

and

2) Try ver 0.50 in a non blue background, try red or white, does it display correctly? or does it have shades of blue behind the font? (with cleartype on, without it I doubt you will see any shades)

Thanks,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net

Okay, I played around with it some. I did not see any difference with cleartype on or off using either version. (It was on with both of the above screenshots). It definitely has something to do with shadows though. I do not have shadows selected in Desktask's options but when I turned them on, I saw the problem increase.

I did find that playing around with different color combinations made a difference. Ver .50 was good under more combinations than ver .56. I am now able to run ver .56 on my blue background by using a yellow font. White font on a black background looks great too. Cleartype remains on.

My question is why is it different between ver .50 and all later ones under the same conditions? I am now able to use ver .56 but I have to play around with it more to get a good combination that doesn't seem too heavy. Keep up the great work, I really love this software. Thanks.

Did you refresh DeskTask after turning Clear type on or off?
When you select Clear Type and click apply or OK in the desktop properties dialog, nothing happens in DeskTask, you have to manually refresh it to see the difference.

I'm sorry insisting on this, because I'm pretty sure the problem is clear type


This is because DeskTask relies on a transparent color, and between .50 and .56 I changed the background color which is then made transparent.
in .50 was blue, and in .56 changed to almost black.

The problem is, when Clear type is enabled shades of the background color (which was supposed to be transparent) appear, so before, using a blue background with clear type on there was no problem. But now, using a black font it seems that the font is heavier, when in fact is the clear type distorting things around.

That is whyin only certain scenarios (black font, clearer backgrounds) and with clear type on does this happen.

Example with DeskTask background transparent color is lime :



A big difference as you can see, I thought if it was a black transparent color it would look better, but it really dependes on the scenario.

I might have to had an option to let the user choose which background does he want to be transparent, that way the Clear type issue is less of a problem.


Thanks for your comments

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net

Yes, you are correct. I refreshed the desktop but not Desktask. Cleartype DID make a big difference. I'm not willing to give Cleartype but I can get Desktask working by playing around with different color combos.

Quote André Santos:
That explains a lot. I couldn't figure out why they were different.

You might want to try using a bitmap font (not true type) Clear Type does no work with bitmap fonts and they don't have this problem.

But for time being what i suggest is really play around a bit to see if you get colours that suit you with Clear Type on.

It's difficult to make something work under all conditions with Clear Type on, At this point I'm not sure if I can make a workaround for this, but it's in the "Todo list".

Thanks,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net

This is the best solution for me. I switched to MS Serif and it looks good under all conditions. Thanks for the tip and thanks again for the great program.

If you search google for bitmap fonts, it will came up with a lot of results, there are some very nice bitmaps fonts available!

Regards,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net