Settings for best IQ experience

1. Performance

Performance on modern PCs is generally excellent unless many thousand items are shown in grids. Filters are always a good idea to filter out extra items

An optimal PC to run IQ would be:

  • 11th gen Intel processor (or more recent)
  • 2.8k 16 inch 16:10 (or 3:2) touch-capable display
  • Precision touchpad

A good example of such PC is the Lenovo Yoga 7i

If some slowdowns are observed, the following can help performance:

  1. Turn Off Memory integrity (in Windows Defender > Device Security > Core isolation)
  2. Run InfoQube in Administrator mode
    • In this mode, drag-drop files / URL from Windows Explorer and Web browsers no longer work (due to security level). Use Copy / Paste from Explorer instead (or also run these in Admin mode)
  3. Grid scrolling is faster when not showing grid lines. Use alternating colors instead
  4. Grid scrolling is also faster when outline labels and cell text word-wrap are turned off
  5. For very large databases with complex filters Windows may flag the app as "not responding". You can increase the delay using this Registry tweek
     

2. Text Quality

Windows text clarity is not optimal. To get the best clarity, do the following

 2K displays (aka 1080p)

  • Display scaling to 100%
  • Font: Segoe UI Variable Display, size 10.5

3K displays (recommended)

  • Display scaling set to 125% or 150% (from the dropdown list, not from the Custom scaling setting)
  • IQ Font: Segoe UI Variable Display, size 11.25 or 10.5

4K or more displays

  • Display scaling set to 200% or above (from the dropdown list, not from the Custom scaling setting)
  • Font: Segoe UI  Size 10.5

System Enhanced Scaling Setting

If the Display scaling is 150% or greater, the following setting can greatly enhance the text and icon quality:
  • In Tools > Options > Program > Other > System Enhanced Scaling
There are however currently some issues with this setting, some of which will be addressed in future program updates:
  1. Grid lines are not as thick and dark. Perhaps favor alternating row colors to separate items
  2. The Surface and Card Views have some display issues when the zoom is not 100%
  3. Some dialog have minor display peculiarities
  4. Section 2.4 below (font) is perhaps an overall better option than enabling System Enhanced Scaling. Test what is best for you !

Other Fonts Related Settings

Font face is most often a personal preference. A particularly nice font, recently available to Windows 10, is a font developed by Microsoft for Windows 11 (default font): Segoe UI Variable. The 'Display' sub-font renders particularly well inside IQ. Download it from here and give it a try ! (unzip, right-click and select Install)

Sample using fonts Segoe UI and Segoe UI Variable Display:

a    a

It is also quite beneficial to adjust the Windows ClearType setting. Press the Windows key and type ClearType. Go through the wizard selecting the darkest, most legible text for each step.
 

3. Pointing Devices

A "good-old" mouse is probably the most common pointing device and IQ is well tuned for these.
Portable PCs have built-in touchpad which sort of behave like a mouse. There are differences however, and these depend on the touchpad type. To date, we encountered 3 types of touchpad
By default, The I beam mouse pointer (the one shown when over a text area) is only shown when moving the mouse. To keep it visible, open the Control Panel > Mouse (or advanced mouse settings) > Pointer and select the Windows Black (large) scheme.

Mouse

  • Each mouse wheel step equals 120 scrolling units
  • In Tools > Options > Program > Grid > Touchpad scroll ratio, enter 100 (i.e. mouse normalized)

Touchpad

  • ClickLock (Mouse Properties > Buttons > ClickLock): Turning on this really helps move and drag-drop operations
    Click the Settings button and reduce the delay
    Hint: A double-tap will also lock when ClickLock is enabled

OEM Fixed scroll steps

  • 2-finger scrolls by steps, each 120 scrolling units
  • No horizontal scroll. Hold the shift key to do horizontal scrolling
  • In Tools > Options > Program > Grid > Touchpad scroll ratio, enter a number between 20 and 40

OEM Variable scroll steps

  • 2-finger scrolls by steps with a step size proportional to the scroll speed.
  • Range is variable between devices but typically between 10 and 5,000
  • No horizontal scroll. Hold the shift key to do horizontal scrolling
  • In Tools > Options > Program > Grid > Touchpad scroll ratio, enter 100

Microsoft Precision

  • 2-finger scrolls by steps with a step size proportional to the scroll speed.
  • Range is variable between devices but typically between 10 and 1,000
  • Horizontal scroll support
  • In Tools > Options > Program > Grid > Touchpad scroll ratio, enter a number between 100 and 300
     

 4. Pen Use

These tricks and settings will enhance your experience when using an active pen:
  • Open writing app in full-screen (i.e. handwriting app Write, integrated into InfoQube): to ensure palm touches do not activate another app
  • Disable screen left-right swipe gestures: Swiping from the left screen edge to the right will show task view (desktops, opened apps, timeline, etc). Similarly, right screen edge swipe will show the action center
    To avoid activating these features with your palm, disable swipe gestures. Details here
    When horizontal swipes are disabled, you can click on the notification icon on the taskbar to show the action center