Missing buttons? Screen res issue?

[komatias]

Hello Dave,

First post here as previously had no issues. Today I bought an extension to the licence I had previously purchased in order to download the latest version. I purchased the professional version in 2013 if memory serves and have not used MSM to its full capability as I didn't have a machine that could load the screen set fast enough. At that time or shortly after I had tried MSM on a machine destined to go on my CNC converted knee mill. Various activations and deactivations have ensued without issue depending on which computer I was testing.

I have been using MSM on my CAD station, in order to become familiar with it, no problem.

So right now I have a small nettop computer that sits on my milling machine in my garage. It does not have network connectivity so I installed MSM 2.012 and used the proxy activation method on it. Activation went well. The "but" is that I am missing the buttons that allow you to move between screens. I have reinstalled/uninstalled MSM a number of time and I still could not get the screen buttons to show up. I always clone the master before editing settings but I deleted the master profiles and reinstalled. Still no buttons.

After much faffing about the problem is that the buttons to change between screens are off the bottom of my screen. The monitor on my mill has the new widescreen format which is 1366 x 768 and for some reason this is not compatible with MSM. I am assuming that the 10x7 is the default.

Do you have a fix for this apart from changing the resolution setting in Windows to 1024x7**? It looks terrible if I set it as that.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

George Konstantinidis

[komatias]

Hello? Any one there?

[DaveCVI]

Hi,
Sorry, I missed the first message.

MSM uses fixed resolution screens - as do 99.9% of all Mach3 screens. For MSM the resolutions are 1024x768 and 1280x 960 - these are both designed as 3x4 aspect ratio screens. The 10x7 versions are designed for 1024x768 screen resolution and do not allow space for a windows task bar (Set the task bar to auto hide). The 12x9 is designed for a 1280x1024 screen resolution while leaving space for a windows task bar. All MSM screen were designed before wide aspect ratio monitors became common.

If you try to run the 12x9 screen, you will not be able to see the bottom of the screen page - hence no buttons to change pages with are visible. This is a problem if you get into this situation and want to go back to the 10x7 screens - as you can't get to the settings page to change the screen set. The fall back is to reinstall MSM on top of itself - just install the same version again. A fresh install always sets the default MSM resolution to 10x7.

Once back to the 10x7 resolution, check you mach config settings - look for "Auto Screen Enlarge" - which should really be called "auto distort images" and un-check it. Also un-check "boxed DROs and Graphics" and "Hi-res screens".
Close and restart mach to get the setting saved in the profile - mach/msm comes back up - the mach screens will not be stretched and distorted. They will not fill a wide screen monitor, but they will not be distorted either.

Dave