npbackup windows too large for 1080p screen

[GuitarBilly]

version:
npbackup 3.0.4-windows-gui-x64-public-3.13-c 2025101701

computer OS:
W11 64 bit enterprise, standard taskbar at the bottom.

steps to reproduce the issue:
operate on a screen with 1920x1080 pixels.

1. start npbackup-gui, open the CONFIGURATION screen. notice the bottom row with buttons fall behind the taskbar.
   i cannot move the window up enough to read the buttons.
   i have to hide the taskbar to work with npbackup.

2. select a backup and press content button to browse the backup.
   again the window is too large vertically and falls behind the taskbar.

expectations:
npbackup should ideally be shorter in height or display in front of the taskbar. I have had a vertical taskbar for the longest time but since W11 this is made impossible by Microsoft hence i notice this problem with the window.

[deajan]

@GuitarBilly I'm running at 1920x1080 too without problems. Let me guess, you're running at 125% zoom ?

[iav]

My 15" laptop has display 1366×768. But I run your program in window ow virtual machine, or via remote session via RDP (windows workstation) on window 800x600. And don't forget about desktop elements like taskbars and toolbars. But windows of your app even not resizeable. With tons of empty unused space.
The app should not require a screen of at least FullHD just because the author has such a screen.
There may be cases when the application logic itself does not allow you to work with small windows, but the application for backup and recovery is not this case.

[GuitarBilly]

@deajan yes your math is sharp, screenshot is confirmed with 125% scaling. Depending on how I use my laptop (i.e. standalone or under a big 4k screen) I use scaling 100% or 125% or 150%.

As Iav mensions there are maybe few situations with low resolution but if you need to reach your backup you just want things to work.
If the proposed pull request from Iav cannot work then I´d refer to this discussion #149 with the Web GUI suggestion. Not only will that scroll on smaller windows but also serve headless machine configuration.

[deajan]

Web GUI is not my highest priority right now, but as said in the PR, I'm currently doing some UI rework (themeing, DPI awareness, wizard). I'll try to make sure the GUI can work with lower resolution screens, although it really won't be perfect.

For now, I enabled "grab anywhere" for all windows so it becomes at least (badly) usable until I find the best way to achieve lower screen resolutions.

[deajan]

I've also made some fixes into the upstream GUI Framework in order to allow high DPI aware UI. I hope to update very soon, but I still work on the UI.

[GuitarBilly]

@deajan noted and I understand your limitations and priorities. If you have some GUI version that you would like to be tried before release let me know.

p.s. grab-anywhere would work for me because I already tried to move the window up to get the buttons in sight.

[deajan]

@GuitarBilly I'll have a pre-release by the end of the month, with some hidden tuning knobs for UI DPI and scaling.
Can you test non compiled versions ?

[GuitarBilly]

@deajan excuse my ignorance but I assume when I follow the guidelines as outlined here
https://github.com/netinvent/npbackup/wiki/Setting-up-development-environment
that it should work?

[deajan]

@GuitarBilly That's it. With the only difference that you will have to switch the git branch by adding git checkout ui-dev after the first git command, or download the zip from ui-dev branch.

[deajan]

Uploaded branch https://github.com/netinvent/npbackup/tree/ui-dev

In npbackup/gui/ttk_theme.py, you can see some of the tuning knobs as environment variables:

NPBACKUP_DPI_AWARENESS=true|false
NPBACKUP_SCALING=1.0 (any float)
NPBACKUP_THEME=dark|light

Please bear in mind that this is a development branch where I do various mods.
Perhaps you can check if with DPI / scaling you can use NPBackup on your test system.

[GuitarBilly]

setting up the ui-dev branch on Windows seemed to succeed but upon starting i get this message:

C:\_GIT\npbackup>venv\scripts\python.exe bin\npbackup-gui
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\_GIT\npbackup\bin\npbackup-gui", line 13, in <module>
    from npbackup.gui.__main__ import main_gui
  File "C:\_GIT\npbackup\npbackup\gui\__main__.py", line 62, in <module>
    from npbackup.gui.ttk_theme import reskin_job
  File "C:\_GIT\npbackup\npbackup\gui\ttk_theme.py", line 16, in <module>
    from reskinner import reskin
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'reskinner'

[deajan]

Can you update to last commit and rerun the pip part ?