UI Scaling upto 4K
- Thread starter eastmen
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D
Deleted member 11852
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I share zed's opinion. I have have Win10 hooked up to a 4K TV and Window's HiDPI scaling sucks; UI elements stretch and/or get clipped making applications difficult or impossible to and fonts can become unreadable. This is exasperated when games use a different resolution to the desktop which can cause different windows on the same screen to adopt different scaling options.
I don't understand how can they get something so basic so wrong.
I raised this with the Surface Pro 4. Ultimately, it's not exactly MS's fault when software uses bitmap based UIs alongside the scaled drawing API-based UI elements. If your software is written to Windows specifications, it should draw fine.
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Deleted member 11852
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It's entirely within Microsoft's control to ensure that UI elements using bitmaps are scaled according to the UI settings and aren't clipping out other UI elements. Windows UI scaling does some dirty approximation when it comes to layout.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
Considering the level of freedom and the amount of 3rd party programs written as far back as Windows 9x still running in Windows, it's not an easy problem to solve. Apple solves it by mandating how programs should be coded, both UI and otherwise. And if they don't adhere to that they aren't allowed to run. Hence occasionally whole swaths of old programs just stop working on Mac OS or IOS unless the developers update their programs/apps to the new requirements.
Windows goes the other direction in ensuring as much as possible that any program written for windows will continue to work. More so when it comes to productivity oriented applications. And while Windows has guidelines developers can bypass those guidelines. When Microsoft attempts to put into place a mechanism to force adherence to DPI agnostic UIs (UWP store), it is met with great resistence. Windows developers don't like being told what to do, unlike Apple developers.
This leads to all sorts of UI behavior. Meaning there is no easy solution. And definitely no solution that is one size fits all. Microsoft has guidelines, and if you want something to scale perfectly (or at least scale well) you need the developer to follow those. Other than that there's a general solution that generally works, but won't work in all cases since Microsoft can't always determine logarithmically what the original developer intended for their UI. Especially if said developer never followed any of Microsoft's previous guidelines with regards to UI.
Regards,
SB
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Deleted member 11852
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Huh? You can throw some really shitty UI code at OSX and will run fine on HiDPI displays. Your apps don't need to be HiDPI or retina aware, the OS just takes care of it. The worst you'll get is an ugly scaled bitmap.
Can you name a few of the whole swathes of programmes that have broken? I have really sloppily coded utilities I wrote back in the 32-bit Cocoa framework that have never been updated and still run fine. This sounds like a mad claim to somebody who has been running OSX since 2003/04 and never seen this. Sure Apple do deprecate API functions but devs gets 3-4 years notice of complete functions withdrawal. Apple dev and here.
The thing is its totally random if its gonna scale stuff correctly, sometimes I turn the PC on and it works sometimes not, usually not ~75% of the time I guess.
My first indication is the desktop, if the icons are spaced apart then its working well, this affects MS's own programs not just 3rd party stuff eg the first screenshot is me uploading the image, as you can see the system file dialog is not scaled correct
Basically this is MS being bad and creating problems for itself and its users by not A: setting proper rules for programmers to follow, and B: not enforcing them either, including what little seems to exist.
You don't make anyone any favors by promoting absolute freedom; while at first it may look that way, but what you end up with is anarchy, and then chaos.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Can you name a few of the whole swathes of programmes that have broken? I have really sloppily coded utilities I wrote back in the 32-bit Cocoa framework that have never been updated and still run fine. This sounds like a mad claim to somebody who has been running OSX since 2003/04 and never seen this. Sure Apple do deprecate API functions but devs gets 3-4 years notice of complete functions withdrawal. Apple dev and here.
I'm not as up on Mac OS as I used to be. The last time I did much on Mac was shortly after the switch to x86, so things may be better now there. If so, apologies for the sweeping statement.
I do know some developers on the iOS side of things and there if you don't keep up there's a good chance your app will stop working or start working erratically. There's quite a few Square Enix games, for example, that just do not work for months after a new version of iOS comes out. Eventually Square Enix will update the app to work on the new version of iOS but with smaller developers that isn't always something a user can rely on.
Basically this is MS being bad and creating problems for itself and its users by not A: setting proper rules for programmers to follow, and B: not enforcing them either, including what little seems to exist.
You don't make anyone any favors by promoting absolute freedom; while at first it may look that way, but what you end up with is anarchy, and then chaos.
That's the thing. You can't do that on Windows. Windows is as much a development platform as it is a business platform as it is a consumer platform. The freedom and flexibility of the OS is as much a blessing as a curse.
A business can generally rely on the fact that a program that was coded specifically to their business needs that cost 10's or 100's of millions of USD will still run on a Windows OS years in the future. Often those programs don't follow any UI guidelines because the UI is less important than the functionality of the program. I've seen some truly horrible UI abominations in the business sector.
But the programs just keep working and keep doing what the business needs.Microsoft have attempted to set proper guidelines and enforce them. And when they do, the internet practically blows up with indignant people shouting about how draconian and anti-consumer Microsoft is. And god forbid if they try to enforce something that makes a user's 15 year old program stop working. It happens rarely, but when it happens, the results aren't pretty.
In some ways, Microsoft may have been better off keeping Consumer Windows separate from Corporate Windows. Of course, that's far more costly both in terms of development and in terms of support.
Regards,
SB
Yeah, which is exactly what I said, only you word it differently.
MS's historical lack of standards and guidelines is now causing people trouble today as the march of technology is making the foundations of non-conformant programs crack.That they can't stop being bad (because reasons), doesn't change that they're bad...
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yeah, which is exactly what I said, only you word it differently.
That they can't stop being bad (because reasons), doesn't change that they're bad...
Being bad is subjective. Many people view it as a good thing. The fact that they have the freedom to do thing prettys much however they wish is one of the things that makes Windows attractive to a lot of people. It's also something that makes it unattractive to some people.
I personally view it as a good thing. Resolution scaling being broken on old programs or programs that don't adhere to DPI-agnostic UI coding is the lesser of the two evils, for me. It's a minor annoyance at most. I understand other people feel differently, and that's cool.
Windows is basically the populist middle ground in computing and one of the reasons it commands such a large share of the desktop/laptop market. It straddles the point between the ultimate freedom of Linux (although with greater hardware freedom) and the relatively more restricted Apple ecosystem (limited to Apple approved hardware). It has its faults, but less so than Linux. And it allows you to do pretty much anything and everything you'd want to do. On other hand, just because it allows you to do anything and use anything more problems can crop up, unlike an Apple machine where things are more rigidly controlled (especially where it concerns hardware and thus potential hardware and driver issues).
Regards,
SB
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Deleted member 11852
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I think what you're referring too is when Apple called it quits on Rosetta (their PowerPC emulation) for 80x86. This coincided with the full switch to x64 and OSX running in 64-bit by default. You could run earlier OSX versions in 64-bit mode before Apple made this the default behaviour but they just draw a line on the 32-bit thing. A lot of legacy stuff was ejected but this happens once in a blue moon.
If apps go screwy because they're writing images directly into the window's viewport and not accounting for the user's scaling setting then that's on the app and the app's developer but Windows scaling breaks using Windows' standard APIs, i.e. using the button class with a bitmap image. What seems to happen is sporadically, Windows draws the button and scales it but doesn't scale the bitmap so the bitmap draws over adjacent buttons and UI elements.
This is objectively a bad thing. The UI 'forgets' the to apply scaling on per element or per window basis. It's borderline unfathomable how a bug like this existed at all, let alone survived from Windows 8.x. There are bunch of other scaling bugs present in Windows 8 and still present in 10 like you make a UI element as scaleable and it never gets scaled, it appears in native resolution only.
DPI scaling for me in Windows is fine. The only issues I encounter is trying to use two (or more) monitors with different dpi scaling. That one could have some of the rough edges smoothed out (but even then it's still usable). Obviously some stuff is just naively scaled (and doesn't look great) but you can't fault microsoft for that one.
To be clear, zed's issue is his dpi gets randomly changed at startup (which will screw things up requiring a logout to fix). I've not experienced this behavior on my two hidpi devices.
To be clear, zed's issue is his dpi gets randomly changed at startup (which will screw things up requiring a logout to fix). I've not experienced this behavior on my two hidpi devices.
Yes I have a high DPI monitor and a normal 1920x1200 monitor.
The high DPI is plugged into a DISPLAY PORT, normal = HDMI
But for some illogical reason(*) the PC treats the HDMI as the primary device (eg BIOS shows up on it, windows starts up on it before, going over the the high DPI monitor) I assume this is causing windows to have issues, the wierd thing is its not replicable, i.e. its random if it will be working or not
(*)Really if you have 2 devices plugged in, one connected to display port and one to HDMI, what do you think would be the better/more important device?, the one using the new standard or the one using the old standard. Hmmmm thats a tough one, so how did they manage to cock this up
The VGA I assume is cause most/all monitors support that res thus it would not exceed the monitors 'bounds?'
So you're claiming if a person has a monitor in each of a VGA/DP/HDMI/DVI port it should first use the VGA port (with no doubt a monitor from last century is plugged in), what about harddisks if theres a SATA and a IDE it should first use the IDE device?
Does the same thing apply to all tech.
Keep in mind Display Port is 10 year old tech, any teething troubles should be long worked out
So you're claiming if a person has a monitor in each of a VGA/DP/HDMI/DVI port it should first use the VGA port (with no doubt a monitor from last century is plugged in), what about harddisks if theres a SATA and a IDE it should first use the IDE device?
Does the same thing apply to all tech.
Keep in mind Display Port is 10 year old tech, any teething troubles should be long worked out
I disagree, it should default to the best (and if that doesnt work) the next best and so on.
Its like mobile wireless signal you want 5g -> 4g -> 3g -> 2g -> 1g and not 1g -> 2g etc
WRT the monitors I dont see why they can't output to all screens at once with the BIOS, and also with the monitors WRT user overriding the default, I cant see a way to override the HDMI with the DP (as the primary device). Had a google cant find anything (though lots of other ppl complaining about it
Its like mobile wireless signal you want 5g -> 4g -> 3g -> 2g -> 1g and not 1g -> 2g etc
WRT the monitors I dont see why they can't output to all screens at once with the BIOS, and also with the monitors WRT user overriding the default, I cant see a way to override the HDMI with the DP (as the primary device). Had a google cant find anything (though lots of other ppl complaining about it
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