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View Full Version : Programs that are dpi aware for Windows Vista


TechStuey05
07-22-2008, 05:45 PM
Hi. As you know Vista is vast improvement over XP in terms of scaling on high dpi displays, but it's not perfect. Unfortunately not everthing scales or scales properIy (gadgets, Photo gallery etc).

Most programs that aren't dpi aware dont maintain clarity and scale in size. For anyone who run a 24" lcd at 1920x1200, you guys know that programs that arent dpi aware in Vista can become tiny with hard to read text.

Increasing the dpi in this case wont help, unless you like the program blurry. My question is: are companies working on making programs that are dpi aware? Also, what programs are currently out there that are dpi aware?

I know that Itunes, office 2007, and firefox are, including most programs that come with Vista but most programs aren't. It seems as though the software companies are moving very slowly in this reguard. why? Discuss

Joe Average
07-22-2008, 05:55 PM
Increasing DPI would make things smaller not larger; you're increasing the pixels per inch so therefore the pixels get smaller on the actual physical LCD panel or display. As for software being "DPI aware" honestly, in all my years (decades, I admit it) I've never heard of such a thing. If the given font settings in a given app are set to a given dot pitch or point size, that's how large they are, period. Are you hinting that application software is or will be capable of doing some "thinking" and realize...

"Hey, this guy's running at 1920x1200 resolution, and my standard typeface is an 11 pt font which humans are gonna have trouble with, so lemme do him a favor and bump it up to 13... nah, make that 14, that's better..."

I don't know if such a thing is even possible, to be honest, and if it is I'd question the usefulness of it as it could seriously screw up a lot of design fundamentals for the entire UI from top to bottom. That would require some neat coding to accomplish one would think.

Guess I need to do more research into this because it's all new to me...

TechStuey05
07-22-2008, 06:33 PM
http://www.rw-designer.com/DPI-aware

http://blogs.msdn.com/greg_schechter/archive/2006/08/07/690704.aspx