Under Review
over 1 year ago

Users complain of very small text in simple data fields

Original thread: https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/259355/users-complain-of-very-small-text-in-simple-data-fields

Although I can't personally recreate this problem, I am reposting it here for visibility, as multiple users have complained of this issue, for multiple simple data field apps.

Text of original post:


Is this happening to anyone else? At first it was only happening for one of my simple data field apps, so I thought it was an isolated incident.

Now a user of a 2nd simple data field app has made the same complaint. Some users report that they used to see normal-sized text, and one day it suddenly became small. More recently, some new users say that it's always been small.

In one case I'm only displaying characters available in number fonts (for simple data fields *) such as digits, ".", ":", and "-" (verified in the simulator). (* I'm aware that simple data fields may be slightly more restrictive than necessary when it comes to which characters it will display in numerical fonts. i.e. The set of available characters for number fonts may be bigger in some cases than the set of characters that a simple data field will render in a number font). Even in this case, I've asked an affected user to change the settings so that only digits are displayed, and the problem persists.

In the other case I'm only displaying digits.

And I can't recreate this in the simulator or on my real 935 device.

What I see on my watch (normal-sized text):

https://ibb.co/1QC0c5V

What they see on their watch (text that's too small):

https://ibb.co/sFCYvvY

It's not limited to one device as Vivoactive 4 and Edge 530 users have both complained.

The two apps in question are:

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/fd690281-9c22-4fee-a81e-3b7f39aa67c5

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/2bc8b0c1-dd83-4679-96f1-0ae2a0925920

The latter (Total Ascent) literally does nothing but convert ActivityInfo.totalAscent to the user's preferred units and round it to a whole number.

using Toybox.WatchUi;

class totalAscentView extends WatchUi.SimpleDataField {

	var elevationUnits;
	function getUnits()
	{
		var settings = System.getDeviceSettings();
		elevationUnits = settings.elevationUnits;
	}

	// m to feet
	private function convertAltitude(value)
	{
		if (value == null)
		{
			return null;
		}
		
		if (elevationUnits == System.UNIT_STATUTE)
		{
			value = value / 0.3048;
		}
		return value;
	}		


    function initialize() {
        SimpleDataField.initialize();
        label = "Ascent";
    }

    function compute(info) {
    	getUnits();
        
        var val = convertAltitude(info.totalAscent);
        if (val == null)
        {
        	return 0;
        }
        
        return Math.round(val).toNumber();
    }
}

Parents
  • A simple test case to support the theory that it's an issue for simple data fields which return strings, and that the behavior has changed from old devices (automatically selects between large number fonts and small text fonts) to new devices (always uses small text fonts).:

    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, which suggests that the theory is correct.

Comment
  • A simple test case to support the theory that it's an issue for simple data fields which return strings, and that the behavior has changed from old devices (automatically selects between large number fonts and small text fonts) to new devices (always uses small text fonts).:

    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, which suggests that the theory is correct.

Children
No Data