Preferences Window Does Not Fit On Screen

anders_royce

On my netbook, the preferences window opens with the top part offscreen (I see only the bottom halves of the tab titles).

Here is a screenshot: Photoshop.com - PrefWindowBug.JPG
Edit: MS Paint messed with that shot when I pasted it, so here is a much better screenshot: Photoshop.com - PrefWindowBug2.JPG

According to some other posters, this may be a mozilla bug. Zotero Forums - [2.0b76] bug - fulscreen mode is not set after restart (The thread is unrelated, but post 10 is about this issue).

dstillman

Is that a 480-pixel-high screen? I don't know—this kind of seems like a problem for netbook makers (or Microsoft, or third-party utility software developers) to deal with. Software developers shouldn't be expected to design user interfaces for the lowest common denominator of devices just because companies choose to make (and people to choose to use) products with screen resolutions that became obsolete 15 years ago.

anders_royce

1024 X 600 actually, so not quite the lowest common denominator, but close. Obviously you're not a netbook guy. You may think small screens are "obsolete" (a silly word to use in this circumstance if you ask me), but I guarantee there are a number of Zotero users with these obsolete screens, and with the continued developments in the netbook market, and all the new tablets coming out, that number is sure to increase. Obviously this pref window issue is no big deal, but to just ignore the needs of users with small screens is a mistake in my opinion (and somewhat discriminatory as well given the connection between screen resolution and cost).

dstillman

I guarantee there are a number of Zotero users with these obsolete screens

I'm not denying that there are Zotero users with such screens, but I'm not sure what you would expect us (or any other software developer making non-mobile software) to do about it. Screen size and screen resolution aren't the same—companies just chose to make devices designed almost entirely based on cost and market them as replacements for modern computers running the standard version of Windows, when on specs such as screen resolution they're equivalent to computers from the mid-90s. That doesn't mean there can't be tools in the Zotero ecosystem that are better tailored to mobile devices, but it doesn't necessarily need to be the Zotero Firefox extension.

"obsolete" (a silly word to use in this circumstance if you ask me)

By "obsolete" I mean that, a few years ago, almost no one had had a screen with a 600-pixel vertical resolution in years. Such screens are now more popular again because of netbooks, but that seems like a flaw in the design of netbooks.

If there are specific things we can do to make Zotero work better on such devices that don't negatively affect the experience for users with less crippled devices, we'll consider them.

with the continued developments in the netbook market, and all the new tablets coming out, that number is sure to increase.

Well, one would hope that netbook makers would either start using screens with decent resolutions or start using software that's actually designed for devices with limited resolutions. The iPad has a 1024x768 screen, but it also doesn't try to run Mac OS X.

Edit: MS Paint messed with that shot when I pasted it, so here is a much better screenshot

OK, in that screenshot it looks like you do, in fact, have a little room to spare, so, the above discussion aside, this particular case may actually be a Firefox issue with window positioning.

ajlyon

Well, you can count me as one more person using a 1024x600 screen. In some of the tabs of the preferences window, the bottom options are slightly truncated, even with the preferences window maximized. Even so, I can get to all the options I ever use. (Ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix, so the title bar is moved to the menu bar, saving some space, and all new windows are maximized by default)

It would be nice for the preferences to fit perfectly onto such tiny screens as ours, but I do agree that this should be a passing phase-- I hope that next year's netbooks will have higher pixel density and this will no longer be an issue.

ra

If you are using Windows, try this as a workaround:
http://bit.ly/LktD

daizhuo

I also use Zotero on a netbook with 1024*600 resolution.

When I start the preferences window, the top part of the window is truncated. However, there is extra space left below the window that is not used.
screenshot - http://bit.ly/annR1z

After I move the window downwards, I manage to display all the "contents" of the window.
screenshot - http://bit.ly/d3JIjR

So is there a way that I can change the default position of the preferences window?

Heckscher

On my netbook there's a simpler solution: just resize the preferences window (grab any edge and drag it a bit), and the top menu reappears. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it works.

adamsmith

daizhuo et al - there is now a ticket for the position of the preference window:
https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/1688