Windows 10 DPI Autoscaling

VA Smalltalk will be a DPI-aware application starting with 9.1, our next release.

However, starting with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update...many existing DPI-unaware applications can have many of their components autoscaled.

This includes current and prior versions of VAST.

This means as users increase the DPI (what you might do with a 4k display on a tiny laptop:), the fonts and other gdi elements will be appropriately scaled.

Without this feature, everything would start looking less crisp and fonts would be blurry.

It's pretty simple enable.

1. Open a properties dialog on the abt.exe (or related) executable

2. Choose the Compatibility tab

3. Check the "Override high DPI scaling behavior.  Scaling performed by:"

4. In the combo box...choose "System (Enhanced)"

That's it.

Notice that fonts are crisp...and gdi elements (i.e. radio buttons..editor comment collapse indicator) will be scaled.

Attached are some example before/after screenshots of what the autoscaling does in case you are interested in this.

-- Seth

This is just a small update to this thread.

As of 9.2, VAST is a DPI-aware application and users should NOT use the auto-scaling capability of Windows 10 on it or else you will get double scaling and things will look incorrect.
Please make sure that abt.exe and related exes are not configured to override the high dpi scaling settings.

- Seth

On Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 11:14:34 AM UTC-4, Seth Berman wrote:

Hello all,

VA Smalltalk will be a DPI-aware application starting with 9.1, our next release.

However, starting with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update...many existing DPI-unaware applications can have many of their components autoscaled.

This includes current and prior versions of VAST.

This means as users increase the DPI (what you might do with a 4k display on a tiny laptop:), the fonts and other gdi elements will be appropriately scaled.

Without this feature, everything would start looking less crisp and fonts would be blurry.

It's pretty simple enable.

1. Open a properties dialog on the abt.exe (or related) executable

2. Choose the Compatibility tab

3. Check the "Override high DPI scaling behavior.  Scaling performed by:"

4. In the combo box...choose "System (Enhanced)"

That's it.

Notice that fonts are crisp...and gdi elements (i.e. radio buttons..editor comment collapse indicator) will be scaled.

Attached are some example before/after screenshots of what the autoscaling does in case you are interested in this.

-- Seth