Under Review
over 2 years ago

3rd part Data Fields on Venu Sq have unreadably small font

I tried installing Calculate Formula and AppBuilder5 datafields. They both show the calculated data in a very tiny font.
I contacted both the developers and was told by the CalculateFormula developer that the font size is fixed for simple data fields.
This seems to be a problem for Venu Sq watches.

  • A simple test case / evidence for what I said in the previous comment:

    This issue can be seen on the Auxiliary HR v2 data field, which is based on Auxiliary Heart Rate (source code). Based on the source code, you can see that it's a simple data field which returns a string value (with only numerical characters), as opposed to a number value.

    On an older watch like 935, the data field uses a large font. On a newer watch like 945 LTE, the data field uses a small font. I took the source code and changed the return value from a string to a number, built the data field and sideloaded it onto my 945 LTE. My modded version of the data field uses a large font.

  • Hey, I'm the developer of AppBuilder 5.

    TL;DR For older devices, when CIQ simple data field returned a string, the device would figure out whether to use a large numerical font or a small text font, based on the contents of the string. It seems that newer devices automatically use a small text font for strings, regardless of the contents of the string. Seems like a step backwards to me.

    There's a few things going on here:

    1) Garmin watches have large numerical fonts (numbers and certain symbols) and smaller text fonts (numbers, letters and symbols).

    2) A Connect IQ "simple data field" such as AppBuilder 5 returns a value to be displayed, in the form of a "string" (numbers, letters and symbols) or a number. Simple data fields don't control the specifics of displaying the data, that's up to the watch

    3) If a simple data field returns a number, then it's naturally displayed in a large numerical font

    4) In the past, if a simple data field returned a string, the watch would automatically determine whether to use a large numerical or a smaller text font, based on the contents of the string. For example, numerical fonts typically support the "%" character, so if a simple data field returned a "numerical 'string such as "100%", the watch would be smart enough to display it in a large numerical font. However, if the same field returned a non-numerical string like "ABCD", it would be displayed in a smaller text font

    5) It seems that newer watches don't automatically choose between numerical and text fonts anymore. If a simple data field returns a string, then small text fonts will automatically be used, regardless of the contents of the string. This means that if a simple data field returns a string that consists only of numbers, on an older device this would be displayed in a large font, but on a newer device it will be displayed in a small font. This is kind of a shame, because it means that it's impossible for a simple data field to return text like "100%" and have it displayed in a large font, even though large fonts support the "%" character.

    Related:

    forums.garmin.com/.../users-complain-of-very-small-text-in-simple-data-fields