3Ds Max different material editor width problem

Tools 3ds Max
1

Hey all,

I am copying the topic from another forum of a friend of mine here because we work on the same project. I hope someone can help us.

I’m really puzzled by this, it’s not necessarily a scripting question, but it’s a problem that prevents a script from working on multiple installs.

Problem: the material editor window width seems to differ randomly (probably not, but seems so) between different max installs on different computers. Some computers will have a wider editor on one Max install but a smaller one on another. Another PC has a smaller window than the other computer with the exact same max version…

the setting I’m talking about is the X-dimensions of the Compact material editor. You can check it in the 3DS Max.ini, under [MtlEditorPosition] is MainWindow= xposition yposition xsize ysize. The only relevant number is xsize, as you can move the window freely and rescale it freely in height (ysize). The X-size however, is locked from user interaction…

The result is our script’s interface is cut off on many Max installs/pc’s, without any way of checking/fixing this. We’ve personally checked 4 pc’s, some have an xsize of 375, some are at 496, I’ve seen 367 pass by too.
Can anybody shed some light on this? Changing the ini doesn’t help, as it resets back to the previous value on startup.

2

Hey Nysuatro,

There could be a couple of explanations for this, the UI that I have seen at least pre-ribbon are all created as a forms in visual studio so it’s most likely something to do with windows themes or settings rather than Max itself.
Are all the computers graphically setup in the same way?

I’ll see if there is anyone on the dev site that could offer some explanation.

~B)

3

It are all different computers. And we tested it on all different versions of Max.
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012

It is showing on my laptop properly in max 2011. But on other computers there is always a piece cut off from the material editor.

I will test the windows them idea.

Thanks for the reply.

4

Check the display font size on the OS. It’s not unusual for GUI programs to not properly account for font sizes that are larger or smaller than the default. This sorta smells like a symptom of that.