At 12:20 PM 25/09/02 +0200, Joost van de Griek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >If you do scale type, however, you'll have to scale graphics, too. While >this works for certain types of images, it doesn't work for others. So when >you let the program adjust type sizes for screen resolution, but not >graphics, WYSIWYG goes right out the window.
Look at Adobe Acrobat for an implementation that lets you scale type (nicely anti-aliased), line art and images arbitrarily. It works pretty well. I haven't used OSX, but I understand it uses PDF as its GDI. Next used Display PostScript, which was similar. (True, low resolution images will still scale poorly.) If you've used the Opera browser, it can scale web pages, text and graphics, in a similar manner. Anyway, I think people are confusing two functions of the "display". One is how the OS presents itself and its controls. As GUIs get more graphical, this has lead to the colourful and photorealistic style of OSX. I think all the system fonts are TrueType now (unlike the bitmapped Chicago et al of System 6/7), which are theoretically smoothly scaleable. (However, all good screenfonts have been tweaked so as to predetermine the bitmaps at common sizes, so you may notice distinct changes in appearance as you change the point size). The other function is the application, like Acrobat above. I work in DTP and actually it isn't important to me at all that the screen image be exactly 1-1 with the printed image. Consider for one thing that the distance you are from the screen is -- probably not the same as from the object you're designing. It might be a billboard 6 feet long to be hung from a roof; it might be the 6-point copyright notice for the label of a CDROM that you'd squint at from a couple of inches. In either case when working on it I switch zoom levels frequently to do different things. I can display a ruler when the real size is important. The "size" of, say, a letter "T" is more how many seconds of arc it appears to be rather than how many 1/72 inch points high it will be printed. Just because on the glass screen it's 3 mm high isn't more relevant than that it is a 1.5mm high pattern of electrons in the middle of the vacuum tube. It's how much of my retina it subtends that matters. Consider the 3-D displays where there is no screen, but a laser that paints an image on your eye. What does WYSIWYG mean then? >On 2002-09-25 11:48, "Philip Stortz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> ideally, there should be a system wide preference that tells all programs what >> the monitor scaling is. > >Agreed. But like I said, that would ideally require all graphics on screen >to be expressed in absolute measurements, not pixels. Here I think you're talking about screen doodads, like icons, menus, etc which are carefully designed little bitmaps. There are sytem-wide preferences, for instance you can choose big or small icons (A fairly coarse setting, admittedly). Many apps will follow the OS for the font sizes to display their menus and such. But actually, vector graphics as opposed to bitmap isn't new at all. About 25 years ago, one of the first computer displays I saw (Tektronics, I think) used vector graphics (as a student I interacted via mark-sense cards) -- where the basic commands were to draw lines, not paint dots. Soon after Atari was using similar displays in its arcade games, which I spent more time interacting with. -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
