Font metrics change in Harmattan part 3 - designing truly flexible UI layouts

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

The N9 Developer blog has a third part on the upcoming change to the font metrics in Harmattan. Already shipped in PR1.1 in the Middle East & Africa, this change in PR1.2 will have an important impact on the appearance of almost every single application. The two previous blog posts discussed two options for fixing text item height (e.g. Qt Quick Component Labels) so that the resulting text renders (almost) exactly the same on the screen, independent of the software release that the device has. However, in many cases changing the height of the text is not the best idea. Often, it is better to create a flexible UI layout that contain text items of varying height/size and still keep the application UI beautiful and fully usable.

Although these tips are useful, until developers actually have a running system against which they can test, it is likely to be forgotten. It is important that developers get access to PR1.2 as soon as possible, in your editor's opinion.