On 10/03/2012 02:24 PM, Shawn Rutledge wrote: > On 3 October 2012 12:12, Samuel Rødal <[email protected]> wrote: >> On 10/02/2012 01:58 PM, Atlant Schmidt wrote: >>> Samuel: >>> >>>> Specifying that all characters must be 5mm in physical height is >>>> typically not what a UI wants in any case, since different types of >>>> displays (mobiles / tablets, computer monitors, and TVs) are typically >>>> viewed at different distances. >>> >>> In my world (medical devices), it's entirely *TYPICAL* >>> that there will be specifications on the size of the >>> text. Realistically, it may be a spec on the minimum >>> size of the text (so that it is readable by the elderly) >>> but we can't go bigger either because the text won't >>> fit. >>> >>> And yes, our interface is a touch screen so buttons >>> must also be specified in real physical sizes. >>> >>> In other words, we need a solution that lets us specify >>> the actual rendered size of the text on the screen. >>> >>> Atlant >> >> Sure, that assumes that the distance the application will be viewed at >> is constant though, and makes it hard to port to another display type >> unless you made the font size configurable in a different way. In some >> cases that is acceptable since the application is not meant to be portable. >> >> Since logical DPI is how Windows and Linux at least (not sure about >> Mac?) let you control font scaling in a global way, I'd say that Qt's >> suggestion for scalable UIs should be to use point sizes and not >> physical size or pixels to specify the size of fonts. The logical DPI >> can then be set based on viewing distance, resolution, and user preference. > > Actually though a point is defined as 1/72 of an inch. This comes > from the printing field and predates digital technology. > > Since logical DPI is often overridden in OS settings, we seem to have > logical pixels being different than actual screen pixels. Users have > gotten in the habit of specifying fonts in points, but that's also a > leftover habit from the pre-digital printing days (a "font" being > something physical like a set of cast type, or linotype character > molds, or films for a phototypesetter). We seem to be redefining > points to be virtualized too (1 point = 1 logical pixel is what you > are proposing, right?), so that they scale the same way the virtual > pixels scale, but I don't believe that users are accustomed to > thinking that widget dimensions are in points. And 1 point is not 1 > pixel if your logical DPI is actually 96 rather than 72, or is it? > What about when you draw a line with a width of 1 pixel, do you expect > 1 logical pixel (which is much more than 1 pixel on a HiDPI screen) or > 1 actual pixel? > > It would be much less confusing if the whole computing industry would > give up on obsolete units and move towards using metric units for > everything. But you do have a point that in practice, there often is > some scaling, so that fonts of a given "point size" tend to end up > smaller on mobile devices. And there is also the point that for > touchscreen controls, the actual physical size of the control is > important because people's fingers aren't getting smaller. > Furthermore, mobile devices are proliferating faster than PCs. So > maybe in the future, UIs should be designed in real-world units and > then scaled up when displayed on larger screens that are viewed from a > distance. There could be a global scale factor so that 1 mm becomes > 1.7 mm or whatever the user wants. It would be less confusing for > users if they set a zoom factor instead of having to understand what > DPI means. 1.0 would mean exact size as designed, and larger numbers > make everything uniformly larger.
Yeah, Microsoft has an article that tries to explain this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff684173 Basically, logical DPI _is_ a scaling factor. If your font has a point size of 24, the actual number of pixels that ends up corresponding to is 24 * logical_dpi / 72. Only if you have a logical DPI of 72 does one point correspond to one pixel. > Basically we are interpreting > logical DPI that way, but given an OS that allows me to override > logical DPI, at what setting can I be guaranteed that a 72-point font > will be exactly 1 inch tall? That should be independent of what model > of monitor is attached, as long as the monitor accurately reports its > real size, right? To get a 72-point font to be 1 inch tall you'd simply make sure the logical DPI was the same as the physical DPI. -- Samuel _______________________________________________ Development mailing list [email protected] http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/development
