Changing font size and color on user interface and dimensions etc.

bwasserman1
Participant

Changing font size and color on user interface and dimensions etc.

bwasserman1
Participant
Participant

How or when will a user be able to increase font size or change font colors in order to use Fusion 360 for people with not so perfect eyesight? I have been using Fusion for years but there is never any improvements for making the user interface easier to see. Many users are older and would appreciate some visual improvements.

 

It's a great program. So please make it better to use.

 

Thank you

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2herds
Advocate
Advocate

Thanks for the post as I also have vision problems and your suggestion would greatly help. Colors also are a problem such as when a light gray icon without full black is hard for me to see.

I would expect such a change would not be too easy.

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lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

The current UI framework is not terribly flexible for these sorts of adjustments, but a more-accessible UI is on our roadmap as part of a future UI framework version. That upgrade should enable us to deliver hotly-requested UI features like scaling and dark mode. I don't have a timeline I can share on this sort of improvement, but please know that it is something we are aware of and working towards addressing.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
2 Likes

bwasserman1
Participant
Participant

I appreciate the answer but it really doesn't help. I am sure many users would benefit from larger fonts and a better scheme. I think this should be a very high priority as many senior engineers use your products and I am sure many, like myself, strain to work with the interface. BR Bernie

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gtprototype
Advocate
Advocate

I was just watching a youtube video from 2020, the GUI used to be so much better.  I did a screen grab, have a look and see for yourself.

20200319_Fusion_GUI.PNG

Dale Speakes
prototype technology
1 Like

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@gtprototype that is the same UI framework we are using today.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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gtprototype
Advocate
Advocate

Yes, same UI frame work, perhaps you haven't noticed how it's been made harder to see by reducing the contrast and changing the font? 

 

To help you understand, as an illustration, lets consider a Snellen Eye Chart.  I'm assuming you've probably seen one, but just in case there is an image of one below.

snellen-eye-chart (Small).jpg

I think we can agree that the chart is optimized to evaluate a person's vision.  Let me draw particular attention to the contrast between the characters and the background. How do you think the test would be effected if the the characters were medium grey on a light grey background?  With such a test, can we not agree that everyone would be negatively effected, even if someone could have formerly read the 20/10 line?

 

I look forward to your response.

 

Dale Speakes
prototype technology
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lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@gtprototype wrote:

Yes, same UI frame work, perhaps you haven't noticed how it's been made harder to see by reducing the contrast and changing the font? 

I haven't - it is exactly the same now as it was then. We have not made changes in this area. Can you please provide a screenshot of your interface?


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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HughesTooling
Consultant
Consultant

@lance.carocci  If you look at the screengrab above (post 5)it looks like all the text is in bold. Don't know if that's down to the resolution but definitely a lot clearer than what I have. But looking back at some old screengrabs I have it doesn't look like any changes for several years.

This is what mine looks like but a different screen res will probably make it look different.

HughesTooling_3-1691516871476.png

This is from the screengrab in post 5 and you can see the manufacture label looks the same as the menu labels.

HughesTooling_0-1691516991012.png

 

 

 

 

Mark

Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

I see - would the UI in the video happen to be from a Mac? That looks like Lucida Grande, the macOS font added circa ~10.9 Mavericks. This font is not available on Windows, so that client uses Arial. I believe the Windows client briefly used Tahoma in the early days, but was dropped due to alignment issues with corresponding .

 

The aforementioned UI framework project will also address that, likely unifying the platforms under Autodesk's Artifakt typeface.

 

Also, from the looks of your UI you have debug mode enabled. If you encounter any weirdness, I recommend turning this off - it is not intended for end users, purely to shortcut some internal testing workflows.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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gtprototype
Advocate
Advocate

@lance.carocci 

Below are a couple of screen grabs from the latest update video.  The top one is much more readable than the lower one.

high contrasthigh contrastlow contrastlow contrast

Dale Speakes
prototype technology
0 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

Thanks @gtprototype, I suspected that might be the case. The top is from macOS, the bottom is from Windows. They do not use the same font. We eventually plan to move away from Arial on Windows, likely in favor of Artifakt.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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Giovanni1983
Participant
Participant

F360 will reflect Windows settings: choose for example 125% font size dimension under Windows Accessibility settings.

I have the opposite problem: because of my need of 125% font size dimension, I feel the F360 "interface" too big 😫(everything to big except drawing environment)

Only solution have found so far is to set 100% font size dimension before running F360, avoid switching application, and revert to 125% when done...

Is it possible to force 100% font size on a specific app only? But this is a per Windows question...

 

edit, my issue solved: it is a combination of how to scale specific apps on Windows AND disable "Display Scaling on High DPI application" settings​ on F360

For reference the Windows part

 

  • Right-click the .exe of the app.

  • Click on Properties.

  • Click the Compatibility tab.

  • Under “Settings,” click the “Change high DPI settings” button.

  • Check the “Override high DPI scaling behavior” option.

  • Choose the behavior with the drop-drop menu, including “Application,” 

 

 

 

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lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

Thanks for the feedback @Giovanni1983 - we don't support this currently, but are giving a thorough review to how we can make the UI more accessible for all users and hardware configurations.

 

Just to confirm - is it only the font size you wish to shrink? Or the entire UI scale, too?


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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Giovanni1983
Participant
Participant

Fusion 360 uses system settings for both Windows and macOS... Fusion 360 runs best at 100% scaling, but if a monitor requires a higher scaling percentage....

 

That was exactly my case: I am fine with 125% scale (Windows screen settings) except for F360 interface (basically all except drawing environment ) that results to me too big (could accept the bigger toolbar but bored to scroll almost every box/windows, rather prefer to see all box/windows content at once. Set for a while scale 125% or more and will understand)

 

found good explanation here:

https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Performance-Tips-f...

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mrector333
Contributor
Contributor

this is great news! I understand it may be a few months, but I am very much looking forward to it!  I have pretty large monitors at 32" and use 1440p resolution, but I still put on reading glasses when modeling, which is sort of annoying.

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mrector333
Contributor
Contributor

this is interesting, and the Artifakt font looks good. But why use a non-native font when there are "close enough" fonts the are compatible with everything else out there?

 

At any rate, I am very happy to hear you are going to update it someday, and hopefully in next few months or so. This software astonishes me pretty much every other time I use it. It's very intuitive, and even when doing complex operations and there may not be an intuitive solution, there is unusually still a simple solution; it's just too complex to add to a right-click menu, for example.

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lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@mrector333 wrote:

But why use a non-native font when there are "close enough" fonts the are compatible with everything else out there?


While Autodesk has a large software portfolio spanning multiple industries, our consistent use of branding - be it logos, layout, colors, or typefaces like Artifakt - helps each app or webpage feel "familiar" to returning Autodesk customers, even if that's their first time using that product.

 

We could use system fonts like SF Pro and Segoe UI, but as evidenced by the current UI, this creates a slightly different layout in terms of padding and spacing. And, system fonts change over time - we know Artifakt will look consistent even across multiple generations of macOS or Windows.

 

That brings us to truly cross platform fonts (usually web-safe), of which the list of sans-serif fonts is short (Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, etc). We did originally use Tahoma, but a Microsoft UI font in a Mac app looks somewhat unnatural - you'll notice on that webpage that Arial is the official stand-in when Artifakt is unavailable. As Artifakt is a font we also use for branded content like logos and official communications, using it in our interfaces is a logical extension of that branding.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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b11705060
Explorer
Explorer

 

b11705060_0-1713802765513.png

b11705060_2-1713802859330.png


I don't really like Arial, so I decided to add an alias for the Arial font in Windows registry:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes

b11705060_1-1713802791141.png

Do at your own risk though. No reboot or re-signin required.
For font size, I think just Windows scaling will be your best bet. If 125% is too much, 110%, or any integer between 100 and 500 is actually all allowed in Windows.

 

 

Turns out, I do have Artifakt on my computer, didn't know that. 

b11705060_0-1713807876186.png

This is how it looks, nice and spaced out. Not bad.

b11705060_2-1713808078035.pngb11705060_3-1713808140559.png

 

I think I will end up using the one above, nice large-ish fonts, and looks pretty clear (100% scaling). Below is Arial. It's certainly smaller, and a bit too crammed.

 

1 Like

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

That's a cool tip, thanks @b11705060!

 

I recommend only using scaling overrides in increments of 25% - I find that some icons misalign or disappear entirely at 90 or 110%.

 

Similar issue with fonts - one of the reasons we do not currently offer multiple font choices in-app is that there are some alignment issues with the current font rendering system depending on typeface.

 

But if it works for you, go for it at your own risk, and maybe share a screenshot or two of your experience!


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
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