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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: [OT] Any plans to keep up with longhorn?
From:       Gunnar Schmi Dt <gunnar () schmi-dt ! de>
Date:       2003-11-02 10:38:49
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Hello,

On Sunday 02 November 2003 03:31, Tim Jansen wrote:
> There's one important point in Microsoft's new system though: it is
> completely vector-based. Current screens have 75-100 dpi. In 5 years
> mainstream screen will have, depending on who you ask, between 150-1000
> dpi. In some Longhorn-related interview I read 4000x3000, that's 9 times
> what the bets affordable TFTs do today. In other words, KDE/X11 will not be
> able to use the full resolution of next generation screens simply because
> no one would be able to recognize the current icons and fonts at these high
> dpi rates.

With KDE it is possible to select a larger font size (IIRC there is no limit 
for the size of the fonts?), and from KDE 3.2 on there will be the 
possibility to specify the width of the window borders for most of the window 
decorations (for accessibility reasons). The only shortcoming that I see are 
widgets without text (such as sliders, progress bars, icons etc.). These need 
to become configurable in their size as well. In this sense KDE is already on 
the way to become accessible on high resolution (many dpi) screens.

> This will cause quite a few challenges: all graphics should be
> vector based so it works on high-dpi screens as well as today's hardware;
> window sizes should be relative to the screen size or the actual displayed
> size, and not to the pixel size; redraw performance becomes more important
> (because the amount of data increases); on the other hand with high
> resolutions tricks like anti-aliasing or font-hinting are not necessary
> anymore.
>
Well, KDE will have to run on both screens with current resolutions and on 
screens with high resolutions (with resolution = dpi, not screen size), so we 
will need tricks like anti-aliasing or font-hinting _and_ vector based 
graphics.

Making the window sizes dependent on the screen size doesn't sound correct to 
me. Better would be the font size or the minimum size for user-controlled 
widgets (once this size is configurable).

Gunnar Schmi Dt
- -- 
Co-maintainer of the KDE Accessibility Project
Maintainer of the kdeaccessibility package
http://accessibility.kde.org/
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