I would like to describe an issue related to improving user control of font size.
Currently, it is possible for us to create “Format Rules” to change font sizes in our apps on the basis of choices made by individual users.
To do this, we need to user the “User Settings” part of the app-building interface (located in “Data”).
Then, format rules can be used to change font sizes.
Unless I’m mistaken, one significant limitation of the current setup
is that font choices need to be identified individually because “Format Rules” do not allow us to change font sizes with expressions. If we could use expressions, we could, for example, allow users to pick any number between -2.0 and +2.0 using increments of 0.1 and then this could be implemented with a single expression in a format rule.
Currently, however, we would need to make about 20 different rules per table to accomplish this same level of user interface flexibility.
Moreover, without the availability of formulas to determine font sizes, we can’t have relative differences in font sizes within our apps AND allow users to change the overall font size.
In my app, for example, I display the Chinese character that a student is studying in larger text than the rest of the text in the app (see image).
I’m able to do this without difficulty as long as I don’t want to give the user control of the overall font size in the app.
If I want to give the user choices in overall font size via “Format Rules,” however, my inability to combine rules using formulas means that I can no longer have a relative difference in font size (as in the attached image).
I see two ways to fix this:
- Make it possible for us to allow the user to adjust the basic font size for the entire app.
As is currently the case, we would still need to determine the default size as we do now but then, if we could adjust that default font size on the basis of user submitted preferences, relative size differences that are determined by “Format Rules” would remain valid.
Such a global default font size adjustment capability would have the added advantage of saving us from the drudgery of going through view after view (in large apps) to change font sizes individually with multiple rules for each view.
- Add expression capability to “Format Rules.”
Ideally, I would like to have both capabilities.
ADDENDUM: Now that I think of it, I haven’t considered what would happen if I had two font changing rules and both were valid for the same text.
Would one cancel out the other or would they be combined (added to each other)?
If two rules can be valid in adjusting the size of the same text at the same time, then it may not be necessary to user expressions inside of format rules to accomplish this – though this solution is not very intuitive.
FINAL THOUGHT: Making apps accessible to people with vision problems strikes me as an important issue.
For those of us with good vision, adjustments to appearance may just seem to be “icing on the cake,” so to speak.
For persons with vision issues, however, font size can be a very important matter.
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