Why is the mail HEADER so BIG? Can this be adjusted?
HI there,
I just got my i760 today after a long period of indecisiveness. I am trying to "get comfortable" with it coming from years of using Treo (Windows Mobile). One thing I noticed that I'm having a hard time with is the EMAIL MESSAGE HEADER area is SO BIG compared with the rest of the message. Why is that? And how can it be adjusted? Does anyone else feel it's too BIG too?
I know I can change the TEXT size in the Screen settings but that changes everything on the phone. Not what I want to do -- just that one particular area. The MAIL HEADER. Anyone please? If there's a registry hack for this, could someone please shed some light on how to go about it? I'm very new with hacks, tweaks, etc.
On another note, it seems the desktop cradle/dock charger is out of stock everywhere I look (in the stores and online, etc) -- does anyone know where they do have it IN-STOCK?
Or is everyone OK with the bigger font size for the FROM and SUBJECT lines in the Message/Inbox?
I definitely agree with you. Another place where the text size is even more inordinately huge is in the Notes section of a calendar appointment. You can adjust the size with the Zoom function but it will return to the ridiculously large 300% default. Even worse is in the Notes section of contacts, where 100% Zoom seems to be indicated as the default but text that looks normal sized on my computer is GIGANTIC on my PDA.
Would be nice if their are registry edits to fix these points (no pun intended).
In response to the last comment about the font sizes in the NOTES section for CONTACTS and APPOINTMENTS, I believe that can be adjusted using the "Start/Settings/Personal/Input" control panel -- under the OPTIONS tab you can change the "default zoom level for writing to 100%" -- which is what mine is set at.
But the default ZOOM level for the NOTES APP is another matter.
At any rate, back to the original problem of the INBOX HEADER font size, there does NOT appear to be any registry tweak to change this. It appears to be something hard-coded in the HTMLNOTE.DLL plugin that is used to format the mail message? If so, any of you Windows Mobile SDK developers care to give us some help with replacing or updating that DLL?
On the header point, I had never thought about it, but you are absolutely right. Now it will bother me, thanks.
Re: Notes - I think the default zooming goes to the fact that in earlier pdas, this was primarily thought to be for handwriting input, so needed to start bigger.
I hope that Microsoft (or someone!) can post a "fix" for this. Please make the header size adjustable! And also, while you're at it, please allow the NUMERIC keypad to be used for the shortcut hotkeys (not just the letters). So that I don't have to slide the keyboard out every time I want to use a shortcut!
I've finally created a "fix" for the problem of the MAIL HEADER being too BIG! First of all, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed with Microsoft's pretty glaring oversight of this very VISUAL problem. This is just one more reason why the Apple crowd is gaining -- because they seem to care about the nitty gritty visual details IMHO. Anyway, here's the quick steps to shrink the MAIL HEADER size down to normal size:
Before you begin, you'll need a decent File Explorer (not the one built-in to WM6, but something like Resco's 2007 -- really great by the way -- and their Registry Editor add-in was what helped me get this figured out!)
1) OK, using the File Explorer, navigate to the \Windows folder.
2) Copy the files read_style.css (and optionally, compose_style.css) to your My Documents folder.. you may need to change the options so that you can view HIDDEN files.
3) Go to the My Documents folder.
4) Change the attributes of those two files so that they are no longer HIDDEN, SYSTEM, etc. (this is necessary for step#5)
5) Navigate to that folder from your PC (assuming it's attached via USB) and copy those two files to a temp folder on your PC (so you can do step #6).
6) EDIT those files using NOTEPAD and change the FONT sizes of the FROM and SUBJECT tags to something like 7pt (or 8pt) -- they are currently at like 11pt! Ridiculous.
7) Save the file(s) and copy them back to the i760 (My Documents folder).. *** Oh, by the way, you may want to make a backup of the original in case you mess things up!
Now, back on the i760, using the (Resco) File Explorer, copy those files BACK to the Windows folder. You will be prompted to overwrite them. Say OK. I didn't find any problems overwriting these "system" files.
That's it!! You should now have VERY easy-on-the-eyes MAIL HEADERS in your Inbox. *whew* I'm glad that they at least used CSS files to store these sizes and didn't compile it into some sort of DLL which is what I had originally thought!
By the way, if you look around at the CSS files, there are other things you can change and customize too! But I just changed the FROM and SUBJECT sizes.
Super, sounds very encouraging, thanks. You make it sound so easy, even I want to try it, but don't want to buy Resco's software yet. Is there freeware that will allow me to change the file attributes? Perhaps something that works with PHM Registry Editor, which I've already installed?
You can download the Resco File Explorer (and Registry Editor) for free as a trial for a number of days (I don't know exactly how many). But it's a terrific program and worthy of the $20 or so dollars. I have no problem rewarding good software developers with my little donation. They deserve it. But certainly try it out before you buy. I think you'll agree how useful it can be.
By the way, if you fish around in those CSS files some more (read_style.css and compose_style.css) you'll find other attributes that you can tweak very easily. I've got my Inbox messages to finally size and look just the way I wanted it. BTW, I also added a BIT of padding space to the TOP of the BODY message (+4 pixels to be exact) so that it looks JUST RIGHT now. I'm very happy now with the emailing on the i760.
OH, and by the way, I was also able to find the registry hack for the KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS to do things like "Send/Receive" and "Reply" and "Forward" that were previously things that could only be accessed via the slide-out keyboard. Here's how!
1) Using your handy Registry Editor (by Resco), go to the following key:
Oh, and one more thing before I forget. There's one more CSS file in the Windows folder that I found handy to adjust. It's called "iframe_style.css" and I changed the font size of the BODY from 8pt to 9pt (I think). Whatever it was originally, to the next point UP. This is the font size of the BODY of the actual mail message. I just found that the preset "Text Sizes" were either just too small or just too big. The one in the middle was what looked just right. Changing it in the iframe_style.css was what did it for me.
I've finally created a "fix" for the problem of the MAIL HEADER being too BIG! First of all, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed with Microsoft's pretty glaring oversight of this very VISUAL problem. This is just one more reason why the Apple crowd is gaining -- because they seem to care about the nitty gritty visual details IMHO. Anyway, here's the quick steps to shrink the MAIL HEADER size down to normal size:
Before you begin, you'll need a decent File Explorer (not the one built-in to WM6, but something like Resco's 2007 -- really great by the way -- and their Registry Editor add-in was what helped me get this figured out!)
1) OK, using the File Explorer, navigate to the \Windows folder.
2) Copy the files read_style.css (and optionally, compose_style.css) to your My Documents folder.. you may need to change the options so that you can view HIDDEN files.
3) Go to the My Documents folder.
4) Change the attributes of those two files so that they are no longer HIDDEN, SYSTEM, etc. (this is necessary for step#5)
5) Navigate to that folder from your PC (assuming it's attached via USB) and copy those two files to a temp folder on your PC (so you can do step #6).
6) EDIT those files using NOTEPAD and change the FONT sizes of the FROM and SUBJECT tags to something like 7pt (or 8pt) -- they are currently at like 11pt! Ridiculous.
7) Save the file(s) and copy them back to the i760 (My Documents folder).. *** Oh, by the way, you may want to make a backup of the original in case you mess things up!
Now, back on the i760, using the (Resco) File Explorer, copy those files BACK to the Windows folder. You will be prompted to overwrite them. Say OK. I didn't find any problems overwriting these "system" files.
That's it!! You should now have VERY easy-on-the-eyes MAIL HEADERS in your Inbox. *whew* I'm glad that they at least used CSS files to store these sizes and didn't compile it into some sort of DLL which is what I had originally thought!
By the way, if you look around at the CSS files, there are other things you can change and customize too! But I just changed the FROM and SUBJECT sizes.
Hope this helps everyone!
Steven
I just did your hack and it worked out great.
Thaks and welcome to the forum!
It appears to be something hard-coded in the HTMLNOTE.DLL plugin that is used to format the mail message? If so, any of you Windows Mobile SDK developers care to give us some help with replacing or updating that DLL?
Re: Mail header too BIG -- tweak found AND FIXED!
Now, back on the i760, using the (Resco) File Explorer, copy those files BACK to the Windows folder. You will be prompted to overwrite them. Say OK. I didn't find any problems overwriting these "system" files.
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