Yes, I know about this Tony, and it's a much milder problem that the "large fonts" problem. I think it has something to do with the "<UNREGISTERED>" notice in the menu bar flowing over the row when the font is too large, and then it starts to flicker because a resize event is issue everytime this happens, putting it into an endless loop.

Anyway, if you register, you will get rid of that menu bar notice completely, and you might just be able to run the program in the normal mode without any problems at all! *hint* *hint* ;-)

The native resolution of my LCD is 1600x1200 so I can't reduce it without everything going fuzzy...

- Trevor

Ok Tony, I'm looking forward to hearing what you find in the latest patch.

And thank YOU guys for the testing. It will result in an even better 3.0 final version!

I can understand your point, but I must say that in the past 5 years since I've been using 21" monitors with 1280x1024 resolution, i've found no other way to clearly see the text on the screen. any time i use such high resolution, the text is simply too small. how do i deal with it?
also, i believe you should have a maximize button. I test software for a living and every tester i know dislikes it when software doesn't have a maximize button.
thanks for listening!

Ok, Trevor, you're excused. :-)
But many people use the "large fonts" setting completely unnecessarily though, and I won't stand for that.

The most recent LCDs/graphic-cards/operating-systems smooth any resolution nicely on a 1600*1200 screen though. For example my Dell Inspiron 8200 with a 1600*1200 screen, Windows XP Pro and a 64 Mb GeForce4Go 440. :-) Gotta love it...

Neurot:
If 1280x1024 is too small, why don't you use 1024*768 or even 800*600? There shouldn't be any prestige in having as large resolution as possible, it should be adjusted to your eyes, without using non-functional operating system features.

And yes, I would actually like a maximize button too. There is just some _REALLY_ strange bug that occurs when I try to add it, and I can't seem to solve it. :-( Seems to be on a really low level in the Delphi native objects or something, total voodoo magic I tell you... :-( I'll give it another shot when I get the time anyway.

I've got a Dell 8000 with the UXGA screen, WinXP Pro and a 32MB GF2Go and it still looks a little fuzzy on the edges Nice laptop, bit heavy and loud tho...

I guess I'm just fussy anyway But I do agree with you, it's a really annoying feature since 99% of applications out there looks bizarre once you turn it on and there isn't any way of fixing it.

- Trevor

1280x1024 is only too small for Windows text. all other objects, images, etc. are ok. There are many business apps that i use that i need to see as much on the screen as possible. my vision is 20/20 as well. i think you'll find most people that use a high end monitor will want to use high resolution to get the most of their real estate.
anyway, i don't want to exchange anymore emails about this. you know have my opinion
good luck on the maximize button!
oh, i should have mentioned before - i have used your program before and really like it. I'm looking forward to using the new one!

"really big programs like e.g. 3D Studio MAX openly announce that they simply do not support this Windows setting"

I work all day in 3DSMax on a 1600x1200 LCD and I hate this. You can argue that if you want larger fonts to use a lower resolution. I need to use higher resolutions for my monitor and so I don't have to deal with wireframes thick as telephone poles...

PS: Love the Tag Studio!

If 1280x1024 is too small, why don't you use 1024*768 or even 800*600?

As was pointed out elsewhere here in the thread, a high-rez LCD display works best when the pixels are being pushed to it at a 1:1 resolution.

Another thing to consider about large fonts:

There are many applications where working in a high resolution is an advantage. For instance, 3D rendering, graphic editing, video editing, desktop publishing, that sort of thing. Even audio editing might benefit from being able to have very fine pixel resolution for the application. But then a user who uses those apps might still want to have the menu bars and dialog boxes be fairly big, hence the Large Fonts option.

I agree that the Large Fonts thing is a terrible terrible kludge to this issue, there should just be the overall ability to gracefully scale everything at a low level in the OS. But hey, no one ever accused Microsoft of solving a problem gracefully.

And if the flickering is due to the unregistered message, then I agree, shame on me! I should have registered a long time ago. I promise, next paycheck.

Yes everyone, I know very well that there are special cases where something like the "large fonts" setting really is needed. I also feel very sorry for the people who find themselves in these situations and all the trouble they bring. :-(

I think we can just all agree that a better implementation of it in the operating system would be much needed and appreciated. Until then, many software vendors, including me, will continue being blamed by their customers for Microsoft's mistakes. :-(

Yeah, I think that most of my software breaks horribly whenever someone tries to use large fonts, too. Ah, the price we pay, right?

Okay, this may be a dumb bug report, but I've never been able to run Mp3/Tag Studio, either version 3 or version 2, under VirtualPC on my Mac. Which would seem like a VirtualPC problem, but it's the only program I've ever encountered that failed this badly. It pretty much immediately says that it's performed an illegal operation.

I can totally understand if you want to just ignore this problem, but, in case you don't, what kind of information can I provide to help you fix it?

Okay. I've got another one. Under Win2k, on the auto rename from tags tab, I pressed the minus button next to the output filename format to remove the first default option, which was <Artist> - <Title>.mp3. Then I clicked the arrow to select the other one so I could remove it as well, but as soon as my cursor gets to the dropdown part of the dropdown box, I get the error dialog

Exception EAccessViolation in module mp3tag_s.exe at 00030360.
Access violation at address 00430360 in module 'mp3tag_s.exe'. Read of address 00098053.

Then I press OK and the whole program crashes.

If I click on the dropdown box and then click again to un-drop it, I canthen use the arrow keys to select the other one. But no matter what I do, if I try to move my mouse over the dropdown box, it crashes.

Edit: Oh, and 2.18 doesn't have this problem.

Emulators like VirtualPC are almost always limited, and especially when it comes to more advanced low-level code.

Mp3/Tag Studio contains quite advanced self-modifying code (as part of anti-cracking protection), and it is very likely that your Mac emulator cannot handle this. I'm sorry about this, but I cannot remove that code. :-(

About the template box crash:

I cannot seem to reproduce this error in any way. :-(

Is there anyone else that can confirm having this error at all, who might maybe even be able to give me additional hints about how to provoke this into happening?

Bitt, can you tell me exactly which templates are in your drop-down box when this happens? Have you added any of your own, or is it only the two default templates in the box?

Also, you say the following:
"Then I clicked the arrow to select the other one so I could remove it as well, but as soon as my cursor gets to the dropdown part of the dropdown box, I get the error dialog"

With "the dropdown part of the dropdown box", do you mean the list of choices that is dropped down immediately when the arrow has been clicked, or do you mean the text area where the current template is displayed?

This is very strange, because there is no code connected to moving the mouse over that area at all. :-(

Sorry. Let me try to be more precise. First off, this is the very first thing I did when mp3ts started for the first time. I ran the program for the first time (I don't remember if I let the installer run it or if I ran it myself, but I don't think it makes much difference, since it always does this), and it popped up the first run dialog (I forget now what it says) and I clicked okay. The tab that was on top by default was the Auto Write Tags Based On Filenames tab. The first thing I noticed was that the templates were back to your defaults (as I expected). I usually remove them and add my own. So I clicked the minus button. It didn't really give me any feedback, but when I click the down-arrow button on the dropdown box, the one listed in the normally visible area was gone, although it was still listed in the visible area. I moved the mouse to select the other default template. (This was not a click-and-drag motion; it was a click-and-release followed by a move.) When the mouse pointer entered the area where it would normally highlight the top choice, I got that error dialog. As far as I can tell, it never highlighted it. I've doublechecked 2.18 on the same computer and it definitely doesn't have the same problem.

Speaking of which, it's slightly annoying to have to uninstall the old one to install the new one, especially for testing purposes. But it's not a big deal.

Thank you for the detailed report. I'm sorry to say that I cannot still reproduce it, neither on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows 98, and other people I have asked haven't been able to do it either. Hopefully it is somehow local to your system, or copy of the program, but if someone else ever reports similar things, I will definitely keep your report in mind.

And I will take a look at that installer problem you mentioned too.

Thanks.

Just so you know, this is a fairly new Win2k install, and I've avoided installing very much software on it. However, prior to this last reinstall, I saw a very similar problem with XNews, although it didn't crash the program. It just gave me the error dialog and then continued. It doesn't have that problem on my new system, though.

And there are not any vestiges of the old system on my new install. It's on a brand new hard drive.

Is it possible that it's an incompatibility with the version of the standard MS widgets DLL that I'm using?

Some kind of incompatibility, or damage in a common dll installed by any other program on your system, would be very possible. That would also explain why you got similar errors it in your last Windows installation, if any of your applications installed on that system is installed on this new system too.

But as I said, I'm only _hoping_ that it is something like this, since I can't find any bug or get anyone else to confirm it. I'm not saying that it is definitely not a bug in Mp3/Tag Studio, it just seems relatively unlikely at this point, that's all.

Thanks.