Microsoft Store version of Picard and fonts

MusicBrainz Picard
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Sadly, with Microsoft store you can not access the local files directly, they are stored in locations you have no access to, and can not even take control over, even as an administrator (tried changing owner). So fonts are a big problem, as they are way too small for an old man like me, even with special glasses for PC use. I tried downloading from here, but got a bunch of error messages. I tried reporting it to the bug-place, but wasn’t able since the account name and password I use here don’t seem to work there.

The fonts has been a topic earlier on as well and the answer was to make a batch file to start the program, which is impossible with the Microsoft Store version. Seriously, isn’t it time the program got a possibility to choose font size in the UI settings? As far as I can tell there’s language, colors, and action bar plus some other odd stuff.

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The store version generally has the same access to all files as the installed version.

If you are using Windows 11 I rather suspect that the “Controlled Folder Access” of Windows is protecting writing the files. If enabled (and I think Microsoft enabled this by default at some point) then Windows blocks any write to specific folders, including your users Document, Music etc. folders. “Controlled Folder Access” can be configured in the Settings app somewhere under “Ransomware Protection”.

If that’s the case there should be a notification in the Windows notification area after you tried to save a file with Picard. The notification should give you an option to open the settings. If not you can also go to the settings and search for Controlled Folder Access. There should be a link to the blocking history, which will give you a list of the last attempts of applications trying to write to protected folders. If there are entries for picard.exe you can allow access for that app. Afterwards it should be possible to save with Picard again.

See also Ransomware protection in Windows Security - Microsoft Support

I’m hesitant about adding this, because it is not as simple as it sounds and will likely draw in all kinds of other issues. I’d rather have things work as intended and font settings are picked up automatically on the platform.

Picard uses a GUI toolkit called Qt, which is cross platform (you can use the same code for macOS, Windows, Linux and others). And it actually already is getting default font sizes for the various UI elements based on the platform and user settings.

Problem right now is that the currently used version 5 of Qt has several issues on Windows if the scaling options are enabled (depending on the exact monitor and scaling settings, this behaves differently on different systems). This definitely needs to be addressed and currently it looks like this can be fixed as soon as we move to the new Qt6.

If we enabled this to be configurable we would need to set the fonts for every UI element. It would also require multiple settings for different UI elements (menus, buttons, labels etc.), and on different platforms different elements have same or different length. We’d probably also end up re-implementing platform specific font size detection, which needs to be tested and maintained and likely trigger bug reports about this. We also use some default UI elements for which we might not be able to control the font size for, so we would receive complaints about this as well.

And all this to have a workaround for a bug for Qt on Windows which should better be fixed.

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I use Windows 10, as most Windows users in the world. Windows 11 to 10 is like windows 8 to 7, unusable. Even Microsoft themselves has acknowledged that Windows 11 isn’t there yet (even if they’re phasing out support for 10 next year). They even have a new version of Windows in the works. Might be a major upgrade to 11, but word is it’s 12.

I don’t remember the folder name just now, but I went as far down as I could, and then checked properties/security/advanced and tried to change owner to administrator, but wasn’t allowed. The owner was a strange entity in the OS I’ve never heard of before, and I’ve played around with Windows since 1.02.

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Ah, you mean you cannot access the program files of Picard, not that Picard cannot access your music files?

Yes, for store apps Windows puts them into their own folders with very special permissions that even protects them from direct access with administrator rights. I think there was some way to configure those folder to be able to access the files, but I’m not sure about that.

Anyway, for such uses I would recommend you either use the installer or the portable version from Downloads - MusicBrainz Picard

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I did download the latest version, as I wrote, and itr gave me a bunch of errors, which I wasn’t able to report (I think) because I didn’t have access.

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What kind of errors?

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I seriously don’t remember. Could it be because I install all programs under D:/Apps and Picard by default assumes C:? I seem to remember it was about folders.

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D:\Apps is where I install on Windows 10. Should be no issues with that location. (Assuming you got that slash the right way round)

I avoid all Windows Store apps. Too many oddities with the rules there, and even MS are starting to back away from that thing. Classic apps always give you more control.

There should be zero need to go into File Access rights to make use of Picard. Use the snipping tool to grab the error message next time and paste it in this thread.

Font scaling - the main text in the Picard windows will follow the OS scaling. The toolbar text doesn’t follow. (I just tried it out - on a quick test I think the toolbar actually shrunk while the mail text went up…)

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The thing with font scaling is that you can’t touch it without screwing up your desktop and what not. The scaling is good, for me, but I change text sizes inside programs to suit my eyes better. Like Google where you ctrl-scroll up or down to get the right size, and other programs where you do it in the settings. You should never, ever make a program that is dependent on the OS’ internal font structure.

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A zoom function would be a neat trick to have on the main text panels. But as the guru above says, that ain’t easy from the current cross platform library in use.

I had a quick check of a few other common apps I use and changing display fonts is not a common thing to find now.

I have many clients I work with who have failing eyesight. We can normally find a happy medium from the OS options. The advantage then is it hits everything consistently.

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As you say, it hits everything, even stuff you don’t want to be hit.

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I jumped in here to help with your install issues. Did you get them sorted? I not really here to defend the font thing. In fact you’ll see one of the other threads about it is me spotting a comic issue with dual monitors.

I was then about to suggest you follow a 2022 thread on this which adjusts the QT font scaling… and realised it was your thread :laughing: Is there any way to increase the font size in Picard?

Has that trick stopped working for you? I guess the M$ store version would have messed up the shortcuts. If we get you back to D:\Apps then that old trick can be brought back in to operation.