(See also: Proxima's topic More options for layout customisation, which this was split off from.)

Currently, the zoom for the skill panel is determined as follows at any given time:

1. Start with the zoom the level is set to
2. If this is less than the player's initial zoom setting for levels, set it to that instead
3. If this is too big to fit on the screen / in the window, reduce it to the highest zoom that will fit

However, the idea has been expressed that the skill panel's zoom should be an independent setting, and I agree with this.

The simplest implementation would be that the skill panel's zoom can be adjusted in the settings menu, but is fixed once in-game (though of course once you exit to the postview screen, you could open the settings menu and change it again). A more complex implementation could allow for the panel's zoom to be adjusted in-game, independently of the level's zoom; though I'm not really convinced there would be much point to doing this.

Any thoughts?

Fully customizable panel is not on the table. This is purely about how to handle the skill panel's zooming. The only other thing that's feasible (feel free to create a topic if you have a proposal + reasoning) is the addition of an extra button to the full-size panel.

The latter may not suit all users, though. So instead, I would prefer going with the former (letting the user set the panel's zoom seperately).

But yeah - is it likely to be adjusted at runtime, or will it be acceptable if the panel's zoom can only be changed when outside of gameplay? The latter would be much, much less work to implement.

Just out of gameplay, I would have thought.

+1 for this.

Implemented in commit b0e4c36.

Note that of course, the skill panel size is still constrained by the window / screen size. Usually, NL will not present you with an option that does not fit, but of course this situation could arise by editing the config file by hand, or resizing the window while in-game. But the only connection it has to the level's zoom now is "if loading a config file that doesn't contain a panel zoom setting, default to whatever the level zoom is set to".