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Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI settings? (at least on Windows)

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Thomas Brodt

Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI settings? (at least on Windows)

Just a question to a subject that I came across the last days:
On Windows, there are two main usages of screen settings: one is the windows standard 96dpi, the other is the alternative of 120dpi
which results in better readablility on large monitors. (Other OS deal better with that)

Is there anything planned to handle different DPI settings that affect screen design?
Today with wrapper we just make input fields large enough to cover the inserted text also with 120 dpi. However this results in a
loss of available space and overly large widgets when 96dpi is used. The other way round, if you design for 96dpi, e.g. labels are
cut below and missing trailing characters with 120dpi.

Is there any possibility to avoid this dilemma, to use a screen layouter that takes the current dpi settings into account and
corrects widget dimensions with some adjusting factor?
Is this even feasable?
Is this even built-in with Widgetry? Or at least doable with some smart Layouter?
How do others solve this?

Thomas

Michael Lucas-Smith-2

Re: Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI settings? (at least on Windows)

It gets a little funnier too Thomas.

If you ask the Screen default resolution - it is defaulted to 75@75 instead of asking the operating system what it's actually running at :)

Cheers,
Michael

On 11/04/07, Thomas Brodt <[hidden email]> wrote:

Just a question to a subject that I came across the last days:
On Windows, there are two main usages of screen settings: one is the windows standard 96dpi, the other is the alternative of 120dpi
which results in better readablility on large monitors. (Other OS deal better with that)

Is there anything planned to handle different DPI settings that affect screen design?
Today with wrapper we just make input fields large enough to cover the inserted text also with 120 dpi. However this results in a
loss of available space and overly large widgets when 96dpi is used. The other way round, if you design for 96dpi, e.g. labels are
cut below and missing trailing characters with 120dpi.

Is there any possibility to avoid this dilemma, to use a screen layouter that takes the current dpi settings into account and
corrects widget dimensions with some adjusting factor?
Is this even feasable?
Is this even built-in with Widgetry? Or at least doable with some smart Layouter?
How do others solve this?

Thomas

Samuel S. Shuster <sames@interaccess.com>

Re: Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI settings? (at least on Windows)

In reply to this post by Thomas Brodt

Thomas,

>Is there any possibility to avoid this dilemma, to use a screen layouter that takes the current dpi settings into account and
>corrects widget dimensions with some adjusting factor?
>Is this even feasable?

Yes.

>Is this even built-in with Widgetry?

No.

>Or at least doable with some smart Layouter?

Yes, but there is none at this time.

Frames have an as yet unused instance variable named useEms. Currently it is set
to false. In the future, we hope to hook that up to the OS's DPI and the current
font metrics. But that's a long way away.

And So It Goes
Sames
______________________________________________________________________

Samuel S. Shuster [|]
VisualWorks Engineering, GUI Project
Smalltalk Enables Success -- What Are YOU Using?

Thomas Brodt

RE: Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI settings? (at least on Windows)

Hi Sames

I am glad to hear that there is something foreseen to deal with it.
Sad that it will take some more releases to get it done.
Such is life, I assume.

Thomas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 6:26 PM
> To: Thomas Brodt
> Cc: VWNC
> Subject: Re: Widgetry UI design dealing with different DPI
> settings? (at least on Windows)
>
> Thomas,
>
> >Is there any possibility to avoid this dilemma, to use a screen
> >layouter that takes the current dpi settings into account
> and corrects widget dimensions with some adjusting factor?
> >Is this even feasable?
>
> Yes.
>
> >Is this even built-in with Widgetry?
>
> No.
>
> >Or at least doable with some smart Layouter?
>
> Yes, but there is none at this time.
>
> Frames have an as yet unused instance variable named useEms.
> Currently it is set to false. In the future, we hope to hook
> that up to the OS's DPI and the current font metrics. But
> that's a long way away.
>
> And So It Goes
> Sames
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Samuel S. Shuster [|]
> VisualWorks Engineering, GUI Project
> Smalltalk Enables Success -- What Are YOU Using?
>
>