Re: [trinity-devel] TDE on dense small screens

[I am not a developer.] Vincent Reher composed on 2017-12-09 19:21 (UTC-0800): 15.6" nominal is physically 282.42 DPI @3840x2160 resolution: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/displays.html 3840x2160 is considered "quad density", aka 4K resolution. For a little perspective, consider what increased density means drawing icons or text characters compared to lower resolutions. 15.6" nominal is 141.21 DPI @1920x1080 resolution (the HDTV standard). The reference DPI, on which web standards are based, and from which most software developers worked until production display densities started to considerably exceed the standard reference, is 96. A screen that actually is 96 DPI @1920x1080 would be almost 23". At the reference, a 16px by 16px icon is comprised at most of 16^2 or 256 pixels, and measures 4.417mm square. Going down to a 15.6" screen at that same resolution shrinks those same pixels into a 141 DPI 3.003mm square space. Raising the resolution to *nominal* quad (3840x2160) squeezes those 256px into 242 DPI 1.502mm square space. The converse is that in order to get an icon that was 4.417mm square on a true 96 DPI screen to stay that size on a 15.6" screen @1920x1080 would require utilizing approximately 554 pixels. On a quad screen, 3840x2160, that jumps to 2216. Computers can be programmed to scale up objects so as to improve their physical size, but with images that comprise the standard 96 DPI icons, their appearance cannot be improved to take advantage of higher available pixel density. Higher density screens need to have different, and much larger, icons. TDE and its own applications are QT3-based. QT3's initial release was 16 years ago and for all practical purposes its development ended 3.5 years later, mid-2005. QT3's design foundation is close to two decades old, well before developers had to consider escalation of display densities. Some elements could be scaled with density, by using units that scaled (e.g. pt, mm or in), but images weren't among them. Some design elements used a mixture of pixel units and scalable units, while others used one or the other. Compromises were inevitable where densities varied more than a little from the standard. Image scaling simply can't work as well as today's "HiDPI" screens require. Either images in additional sizes need to be provided, or a different kind of image designed to be scaled need to be provided, or both. QT3 wasn't designed for scalable images, and no one ever provided much in the way of additional images, or just as, or more, importantly, an effective framework for utilizing them without compromises. Getting TDE off QT3 onto a foundation that fully supports "HiDPI", assuming any such open source foundation actually exists at this point, in my estimation would require resources several orders of magnitude larger than those available to the TDE project. IMO you're probably facing a choice between using TDE and not using native resolution. At a normal viewing distance, 141 DPI ought to be as high a display density as anyone with no better than average visual acuity can fully appreciate, absent side-by-side comparisons, where differences may or may not be detectable without getting closer or using a magnifying glass. I suggest giving 1920x1080 (physically 141 DPI) a try. The kernel cmdline can be configured through the bootloader menu to have it override EDID and use 1920x1080. Xorg and thus TDE should use that mode automatically, but if it does not, Xorg can readily be configured to use it directly. TDE settings can do same if need be. Fonts in apps generally work best if DPI is a multiple of 24 (96 * 1.25, 96*1.50, 96*1.75, etc.), less well at 12X, even less well at 4X or 8X, so at 1920x1080 you might wish to try forcing DPI to 143 or 144. 144 is a breakpoint in some software design, so you might notice some big differences between 143 and 144. Depending on how good your daughter's vision is, leaving logical DPI set to its 96 default may well prove acceptable with 1920x1080. Leaving QT3 has been suggested, but I've seen nothing on this mailing list or on IRC to suggest anyone thinks it could ever happen. HTH