drawText() positioning differences between Edge520 device and simulator

Hi there,

I've discovered a difference between how text is positioned with drawText() in the simulator vs. an actual device. In this case, I've been using an Edge 520 (as it's the only device I have).
I can lay things out exactly where I want them in the simulator, only to find that they are slightly off on the actual Edge 520 device, as per the pictures attached. Now, maybe it could be argued it's only slightly out, but when you're trying to squeeze the biggest fonts you can into a tiny space, every pixel counts.

In my case, what I've found is that if I add 3 pixels to the Y coordinates and 2 pixels to the X coordinates for the device ONLY, then it displays as expected, but I have to not add these values when in the simulator. It's quite frustrating. fillRectangle() and drawArc() do not exhibit the same behaviour, clearly its related to the font rendering.

Also, there is a difference between what the simulator says is the height of an Edge 520 cell (52 or 53 pixels depending on which cell), vs. 51 or 52 pixels in the actual device.

Is it a bug?

Thanks,
Rob. community.garmin.com/.../1275047.jpg community.garmin.com/.../1275048.jpg community.garmin.com/.../1275049.jpg

jim_m_58 over 6 years ago

el34rob2 - This to me sounds like a fix to the SDK and not to the FW, where the sim needs to be fixed to match the device itself.

BTW, some devices won't be moving to CIQ3 (there was a chart shown at the Summit, and with the 520 for example, it's because of the 520+), but I'm guessing that there will be updates to CIQ2 on them, as there were with CIQ1 devices when CIQ2 came out.

Coleman.Apps over 6 years ago

el34rob2,

You are correct that those devices will not get the 3.x VM changes, but this is an issue we will address on the simulator side. Even if this fix came later, it would not effect devices themselves.

Thanks,
- Coleman

scottbeam over 6 years ago

just came across this issue today on my 820 while rewriting my app to be more pixel perfect. i had to move everything down about 5 pixels to get it to look correct on the actual device.

FCS7 over 6 years ago

Hello,

I wanted to give an update. I don't see this as fixed yet, but it does look like something we are hoping to get fixed in one of the 3.x releases.

Thanks,
- Coleman

Do you have any update as to when this problem will be fixed? Already tried SDK 3.0.1 but the problem remains the same. I need to fix some UI issues in my apps on different devices that I don't own and I can't test on, but because of this bug I can't at the moment. It's really annoying.

Also is it possible that Edge 130 font rendering is almost totally broken in the sim (not just positioning) or maybe some font sizes are not available on that device?
I already checked the UX Guide that is coming with SDK 3.0.1 for available fonts on the device, but Edge 130 is not even mentioned there so I guess the documentation is outdated....

el34rob over 6 years ago

Well, it's been 12 months to the day since I reported this and it's still an issue (SDK 3.0.4). I just spent ages trying to line things up in an update to my apps, but the time it takes to test/load/reload/retest... on a device is the killer. I can't waste any more time on this. Will just stop and wait to see if it ever gets fixed.

FCS7 over 5 years ago

Well, it's been 12 months to the day since I reported this and it's still an issue (SDK 3.0.4). I just spent ages trying to line things up in an update to my apps, but the time it takes to test/load/reload/retest... on a device is the killer. I can't waste any more time on this. Will just stop and wait to see if it ever gets fixed.

I can't agree more on this. I find the current situation outrageous and as you I'm just telling the users of my datafields to fill a complain with Garmin. As you I will stop try to workaround this on my side and do the test/load/reload/retest specially because I only have one device I can test on, for the rest I need to depend on users good will to test and report back which is really unsustainable.

Until this long running, annoying bug is not fixed in the SDK I will stop developing any new app for Garmin devices. If this is how Garmin treats it's developer community, well I will not spend another minute developing apps for their devices.

Coleman.ConnectIQ: can you please provide an status update regarding this BUG fix?? Your last post on this thread is from more than 6 months ago!

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago

What version of the SDK are you using? If I recall, the fonts in the sim were fixed in 3.0.7. The change log for the sim has:

"Fix font sizes used by the simulator to more closely match those used for devices"

3.0.8 is the latest SDK

ekutter-dnu over 5 years ago

Correct, the font's were greatly improved where I now see at most 1 or 2 pixel differences between the sim and the device.

FCS7 over 5 years ago

I was using 3.0.7 and I just updated to 3.0.9 so I will try again. Yet the problem is not the font size itself but the coordinates where the text is rendered are different in the real device and the sim. So you need to do a lot of "fine tunning" of text the positioning by test/change text coordinates/retest until you get everything where it should be on the real device.

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago

If you could, maybe post a screenshot from the sim and a picture of the device to show the difference.