ONGOING BUG: Security menu in Security Detail View is still broken

Rocket J Squirrel

In the upper left corner of the Security Detail View dialog is a pull-down menu listing all securities.

This has been broken for several versions when the cosmetics of this dialog were changed for no apparent reason.

This is what it looks like before clicking:

This is what it looks like after clicking. Note that the menu has been reduced to a single thick line. In the screen shot below, it is a long line because some of my security names are long.

It may be that not everyone is seeing this. But I've been seeing it for long enough that it's gotten truly annoying. Please fix.

NotACPA

@Rocket J Squirrel  Are you seeing this in the Beta version or in a production release?  Because I'm not seeing it in Beta.

Rocket J Squirrel

@NotACPA we may not discuss beta outside of beta. But I see it in both production and beta. You say you're not seeing it in beta. Are you seeing it in production?

The interesting thing was when I initially reported this, staff could not reproduce it. @Quicken Chris asked for a data file. I created a new file with nothing in it but the built-in stock indexes. It exhibited the problem for me, but when Chris opened the same file, it did not.

This is why I want to keep the issue alive. Others have reported seeing it, but many have not.

NotACPA

Even when I signed out, I could still see that we both had "Windows Beta" following our user IDs ... so that's no secret.

I merely asked WHERE you saw this?  Which Q product?

Chris_QPW

I'm not sure how they are going to fix something if they can't reproduce it.

Given the nature of it being reported on some systems it seems to be something tied to the display.

Ps56k2

I see the normal screen drop down - R29.22 -
and since the box can't be sized, that's not the issue -

Rocket J Squirrel

NotACPA said:

I merely asked WHERE you saw this?  Which Q product?

Quicken Premier for Windows. The last 4 or 5 versions at least.

Chris_QPW said:

I'm not sure how they are going to fix something if they can't reproduce it.

Given the nature of it being reported on some systems it seems to be something tied to the display.

This is a new bug. They changed the cosmetics of the dialog for no apparent reason. There is nothing improved about the dialog, only a slightly different appearance. I have asked them to restore the previous version, which worked fine and which must exist in the source repository. My request was ignored.

I've been running Q for years on 2 Win10 computers and both have the problem as of some recent release whose number I forget. I am using standard NVIDIA display adapters at 1920x1080 on both computers, so nothing exotic.

ps56k said:

I see the normal screen drop down - R29.22 -

I'm well aware that many, or even most, users don't see the problem.

Rocket J Squirrel

EUREKA! I have found it!

The problem manifests for me when my Windows scaling is anything other than 100%. If I set it to 100%, the menu displays properly. But I will need new eyeglasses.

Would you guys give it a try at 125% scaling and see whether you can reproduce it at that setting?

Chris_QPW

Still works for me at 1920x1080 125%. But it does sound like is is "display related".  As in a Windows scaling kind of problem.  Do you use any special compatibility settings for Quicken?

Rocket J Squirrel

Thanks for testing! Yes, I use "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" otherwise Quicken is blurry since I updated from Win7 to Win10. I can find no other setting which gets rid of the blur.

So it must be the combination of those 2 settings which causes the issue to manifest. But again, I protest that this worked fine until the dialog was recently altered.

Chris_QPW

Rocket J Squirrel said:

But again, I protest that this worked fine until the dialog was recently altered.

I'm not trying to justify that it shouldn't be fixed, it should be.  I'm just trying to get a reproducible use case to make it easier for them to fix it.

I tried "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" , and it still works for me.

Rocket J Squirrel

And I appreciate your efforts. So it still works for you with both 125% and high DPI by application set simultaneously? Dang. I guess I'll scour my 2 PCs for any other settings which might be involved.

Chris_QPW

BTW as for reverting to the older code and such here is how I think it goes down.

1. Developers are told to change it for whatever reason.
2. Once done they feel very strongly about "not going backwards".  The only times I have ever seen them "go back" is when tons of people have a problem and it a "large one".
3. So they aren't going to go back the that code for so few people and a minor problem.  If they even get around to doing this then what they will want is to discover why it changed, and fix that.
4. Well how do you know you have fixed something if you can't reproduce it?  You can't even try this and that and see if it makes a difference.  And with these Windows scaling display kinds of problems it most likely isn't really going to be in the their code. It will most likely be in "call this low level function, instead of this one".

Chris_QPW

I'm trying to wrap my mind around how the "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" setting helps you.

What I see it doing on my machine is basically scaling Quicken at 100% instead of 125% (and everything else on the display at 125%).


First one (100%) is just everything off and display at 100%.
Override is the above setting notice it the text/title bars are the same 100%.
Everything off is the 125% with ("Advanced off")
The last is 125% with this setting on (which is on by default I think).

Chris_QPW

OK I got it.

You have your Windows scaling to 125%.
You have the "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" setting on, which brings only Quicken back to 100%.
You have "Use Large Fonts" on which brings you back to about 120%.

With these setting I can reproduce the problem.

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

OK I got it.

You have your Windows scaling to 125%.
You have the "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" setting on, which brings only Quicken back to 100%.
You have "Use Large Fonts" on which brings you back to about 120%.

With these setting I can reproduce the problem.

2 out of 3 ain't bad. I am not using Large Fonts. And I don't see any size change when override is on or off.

Chris_QPW said:

I'm trying to wrap my mind around how the "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" setting helps you.

This whole issue seems very stupid because high DPI is not involved. I am using an old monitor with regular resolution.

But all fonts in Q are blurry without the override. Here is the opening password dialog without override.

Here is the dialog with override.

Note they are the same size, so I'm not seeing the effect

You have the "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application" setting on, which brings only Quicken back to 100%.

Chris_QPW

"This whole issue seems very stupid because high DPI is not involved."

"High DPI" Is a misnomer. It is a term people use for what in reality is a scaling problem.
The reason "high DPI" gets thrown in here is just because once you get to a certain amount of resolution even a person with perfect eye sight can't read the text unless it is scaled up.  So you can have such problems on any display where you are scaling.  Windows applications don't scale properly because the APIs span times long before anyone thought to scale displays.  And what's more each can scale differently.

You might not have Large Fonts on, but it is certainly acting like you do or maybe the override setting is working properly/or at least not the same as on my machine.

Starting with 100%.

Now with 125% with the override setting.

Now with 125% without the override setting.

Now your screenshot from above:


Now with 125%, with override and Large Fonts:

125%, with no override, and Large Fonts:


Looking at the one that matches yours is no override setting and 125%.

But for me the only one I can reproduce your problem is with 125%, override, and Large Fonts.

Rocket J Squirrel

Thanks for the experimentation. I can't stand Large Fonts because everything becomes huge. I need 125% scaling in general for all software or I have to squint.

Where do you get that "Resize & Skew" dialog from? Paint? How does it apply to another application?

This all started when I moved from Win7 to Win10. So perhaps there's something else to tweak which I haven't yet found.

Chris_QPW

Even though the setup I used to reproduce your problems isn't exactly the same as yours it might be that if they fix it for the one I gave, it will fix it for your.  Don't know, but it might be worth a shot.

BTW if you start to look at the different combinations we have already been through, and don't forget that you can also have custom font scaling, you get a feel for how big this problem really is and why there isn't a "just fix it" solution.  Different controls behave differently in the different combinations.

Chris_QPW

Rocket J Squirrel said:

Thanks for the experimentation. I can't stand Large Fonts because everything becomes huge. I need 125% scaling in general for all software or I have to squint.

Where do you get that "Resize & Skew" dialog from? Paint? How does it apply to another application?

This all started when I moved from Win7 to Win10. So perhaps there's something else to tweak which I haven't yet found.

If you bring up the image in Paint and then select Resize -> Pixels, it will show you the size in pixels.

Chris_QPW

P.S. the reason Large Fonts would be huge for you is first you have Windows scaling up by 125% and then Larger Fonts scales that up by about another 120%.  Which is equivalent of you setting the Windows scaling to 150%.

Rocket J Squirrel

We only recently decided to switch from 100% to 125%, but we hated Large Fonts even at 100%. Large Fonts has always been overkill except for the truly vision impaired.

It's pretty obvious Q's display code can't keep up with Windows. No other application has any issue with display scaling. Everything other than Q scales perfectly, bug-free. But Q is ancient. Its code is dark and full of terrors. The only application I still run that's older than Q is Microsoft Word, which also started on DOS. But of course MS is able to keep their display code up to date.

Chris_QPW

I'm sure Microsoft Word has been totally rewritten many times over the years.
But yeah Microsoft does tend to keep their GUIs up to date.  Then again they don't follow their own standards.  They get their low level developers to make special interfaces just for their applications.  That is why they can have buttons in the window title that work right and we have Quicken Inc trying to do the same thing and have a messed up "fake main Window".

dougp

I have been seeing the same Security Detail drop-down list problem for a while.

I have Normal fonts & 125% scaling. Switching to 100% does allow the drop-down list to display -- but 100% is not something I can work with on this 17" laptop. The other settings mentioned have no effect on my drop-down problem; it's only the scaling for me.

Want to add that I have not seen this problem on any other app.

Current versions: Windows 10 Pro v2004, Quicken Deluxe  vR29.22 (but problem existed in prior versions, too)

Chris_QPW

BTW for the record, when looking at Quicken using Spy++ I notice that they do some really strange things with some controls, the investment accounts are the worst.  They act like they are a Microsoft that have access to low level developers that can do off the wall things, but in fact they come across as arrogant middle to low level programmers.

I'm sure a lot of these scaling problems stem from this.

Quicken Kathryn

Hi @Rocket J Squirrel - we've put in a bug report on this to investigate.  We want to also see whether this might be caused by the length of the security name in combination with the display settings.  Would you be willing to create a test file with just one short security (like Apple) and see if the same problem occurs?

CTP-1310

Rocket J Squirrel

Quicken Kathryn said:

Hi @Rocket J Squirrel - we've put in a bug report on this to investigate.  We want to also see whether this might be caused by the length of the security name in combination with the display settings.  Would you be willing to create a test file with just one short security (like Apple) and see if the same problem occurs?

CTP-1310

@Quicken Kathryn Sure, no problem. In fact I submitted such a file via Centercode a while back.

I'm convinced it's a display issue, not a data issue. The key seems to be the Windows setting "Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by application." I need this or Quicken is blurry in Windows 10.

Here is a screen shot of a file with only AAPL in the securities list.

Rocket J Squirrel

@Quicken Kathryn And here is the same shot with high DPI override disabled and nothing else changed. Notice the blurry text.

Quicken Kathryn

@Rocket J Squirrel Thank you!  I'll get this info to the development team--

Rocket J Squirrel

This is still broken in 27.1.31.12.

@Quicken Kathryn has a ticket been opened? Is there any more information I can provide? Screen share? Anything?

Quicken Kathryn

@Rocket J Squirrel - I just got word that this will be fixed in the R33 release, which is tentatively planned for next week--if you have the beta build, can you see if the issue is still there?

Thanks--