Vista - ClearType?

Sorry, but "ClearType" looks anything bug *clear*. I understand using
something like that for printing, but on the screen it just looks like a blur.

I know about disabling the "Always use ClearType" option for reading mail,
and I've already turned that off.

But there does not appear to be a similar setting for the application as a
whole. The folder tree, the message list, the toolbar labels... all of
these look fuzzy to me and it drives me crazy!

While I'm on the subject, I also don't like the attempt to fake the
Vista-style title bar in Windows XP. You're defeating the purpose behind the
User32 library to begin with. The standard window borders and title bar
provided by Windows are perfectly acceptable, and they draw much faster than
the custom borders and title bar in Windows Live Mail Desktop. (For what
it's worth, iTunes does something similar and I hate it).

Please provide options to turn all this so-called "eye candy" off. It adds
nothing of substance to the application and only makes me less inclined to
use it.

I totally agree - having only just switched from OE I have spent two days
fiddling with settings to make it more clear. Here is what I did after many
trials of different settings - note this is for XP only as you will see
later on.

Turn off clear type in WLM and turn it on in XP's desktop settings. This of
course will enable clear type in the whole OS but doing this will make WLM
not seem too bad as everything looks the same. Download MS clear type tuner
and install it. It runs from a control panel applet.

Close WLM then open your fonts folder in explorer and DELETE the SegoeUI
fonts (copy them somewhere else first if you want to so you can install them
again if need be). ONLY DO THIS DELETION IN XP as that font is the system
font in Vista. This will make the fonts used in the folder and message list
bigger and less prone to being fuzzy. I don't know which font it uses after
deletion of SegoeUI but it is certainly easier to see. Open WLM and run the
clear type tuner applet and chose the setting that provides the clearest
text. If you have WLM open with a message displayed you can see the changes
made by clear type tuner as you do it.

I have also found the read font is also important for clarity. For me
TrebuchetMS is the clearest with Tahoma and Arial close. Try different fonts
to see which you prefer.

You may need to adjust your contrast and brightness settings on your monitor
to make the text darker and not so grey. After a few hours use it will not
seem so bad and in actual fact if I switch back to standard font smoothing
it now doesn't look too good.

An alternative is to delete the SegoeUI fonts and use XP's standard font
smoothing option instead of clear type but WLM doesn't seem to look any good
at all unless you use clear type in some form or another.

Hope this helps!


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cheers,

Raymond Jones
raybubbear@xxxxxx




"JL" <JL@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:56ABCB03-4504-4F98-9B8D-1B6F5F296DCE@xxxxxx

I just realised that the read font setting has absolutely no effect - the
preview pane stays in the same font no matter what I select. Is that normal?
The more I use this program the more limitations I find and how unfinished
it actually is.......


--

cheers,

Raymond Jones
raybubbear@xxxxxx


"Raymond Jones" <raybubbear@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#rMSwexqIHA.552@xxxxxx

"Raymond Jones" <raybubbear@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eh8JzozqIHA.2188@xxxxxx
Not enough information. What format?
E.g. if HTML you may need to use the
Internet Option's Accessibility dialog
and then set your font preferences with its
Fonts dialog.

Do you have the IE8 beta installed?
If so many have found it useful to leave all messages
in plain text. Then you can always switch to HTML mode
by pressing Alt-Shift-H. In that case I would blame
IE8b1 not WLMail (or OE, which sees the same issue.)


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