I had an expectation that map text would scale up with zooming in.
What actually happened
I have a few issues with the new Charts beta ingame panel, but the main one relates to font scaling on a 4K monitor. The panel interface is fine albeit I have it set at 2x in options to be readable on my 4K display. The map is a different story (although the chart overlays are fine). All the map text is tiny and when I zoom in using +/- or mouse scroll wheel the text becomes bigger but then 0.5sec later it snaps back to being tiny again. It’s very frustrating. Just about all map text does this.
Also text labels (coloured ones) on the flightplan segments or say on the arrivals/transitions display are miniscule at 4K and don’t ever scale so you just can’t read them.
I’ve attached a few screen grabs (captured at 4K desktop 4K in game and downsized-
*Arrival or flightpath coloured labels are tiny and don’t scale up *
The next two are of same map area, one zoomed out and on zoomed in the text is tiny on both
*Also note the dark blue text on dark grey background (flight name and cruising altitude) in the interface is illegible can you please change it to be more contrasting.
All/most other black/blue/green text elements on the map eg for place names, airport, VOR, NDB, waypoints have a default font size that is too small at 4K, and when you zoom in to read them they become slightly bigger (more readable) BUT then snap back to being small/illlegibe again (default size?). It only becomes legible if I get really close to the screen. So to me the default font size for every map element at 4K is too small. Can you introduce a default text size slider? Or change the snap so that text stays bigger on zoom instead of snapping back to small again?
Can you please change the highlighted colours to a slightly lighter shade as I can’t read them easily on top of dark background. Even a few shades lighter and it would be more legible/visible. If these colours are set, can you do a selectable option in settings instead to tweak these?
I have my UI Scale in settings set at ‘2’ which is the max it will go, it would be good to be able to go slightly higher to say 2.6, etc I admittedly have aging mid 50’s eyesight, but I’m sure many of us simmers do!
I should also mention that for all of the above I have switched the settings to ‘use large scale map’ if I revert to smaller sale map the text is so small you can barely see text at all on the map.
It’s ambiguous to me what ‘large scale map’ setting does ? If it increases font size, it’s not nearly by enough at 4k.
Here is the same approach on beta ingame panel and on Navigraph charts 8. Both on 4K display. The map text on the in game panel is a notably smaller font size than on the external app.
I can read the black/blue/green VOR, NDB, airport map text on the external app, but not on the in game panel where the default font size is too small.
We have an issue in our tracker to fix this, most items are scaled with the UI scaling but e.g. the procedure overviews are not yet. It will likely come in the next update.
This is unfortunately a limitation that we can’t easily work around. One tradeoff we needed to make to be able to bring the new panel into the sim at all, was to switch from vector to rasterized enroute charts. This means that the fonts are fixed and can’t be changed on the client side, like you can with the normal desktop or web app (the Map Scale setting). The “use large scale maps” is one way to provide at least some degree of control as we then essentially double the image size of the entire enroute map.
You should see roughly the same text sizes in the old (current production) in-game panel. Can you confirm, or do you think there is a difference.
We’ll try to find other ways to make it possible to further increase the size of the enroute chart but there is no easy fix I’m afraid.
We’ll consider this, I have added it to our issue tracker.
Thank you for the detailed explanation about the limitations of the panel, and thank you for considering these other changes. Very happy with the new interface etc apart from these issues.
I think you are correct about font size in old panel, I just did a comparison and font size is similar. Also just noticed (see below image) that VOR frequency ‘box/outline’ is no longer there. Why is this? I find the box very useful to quickly see location of VOR’s (and their frequency) the new panel map seems to hide VOR’s or am I missing some setting to toggle this?
I see a TACAN in your screenshot which is visible in both the new and old panel (NAVY LEMOORE). It is shown with name, frequency and morse code in both. Could you be more specific about what you are missing?
The rectangular back line ‘boxed’ outlines around the frequencies of Tacan/VOR etc and the prominence of the frequencies themselves are my concern here. On the left we have TACAN 113.3 with prominent name and morse info etc along with the outline, on new panel it is tiny info with no outline. The outlines were one of the easiest ways to see visually see beacon locations (useful for VFR/GA type flying). I feel they are more hidden now, and on top of other info too.
