Windows software developers – High DPI awareness: the developer Y2K (or is it EUR introduction) of our time.
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/11/05
An interesting statement by Steve Maughan:
Looking at how many High DPI awareness or lack of is the developers Y2K of our time.
Looking at the trouble Windows and Windows applications in general have with High DPI (more in general: resolution independence). I think it rates even higher: as the EUR introduction problem of our time.
What do you think?
–jeroen
via High DPI awareness is must have feature for XE8. Not only for Delphi IDE, but….
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
David Heffernan said
This SO question covers the topic somewhat: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8296784/how-do-i-make-my-gui-behave-well-when-windows-font-scaling-is-greater-than-100
IL said
Still pre-HighDPI :(
David Heffernan said
There’s not much needed. I had dpi aware support even back in Delphi 6. You just add the manifest and scale the forms. The VCL has the scaling capability already with Scaled. I tweaked it a little but it basically works.
Dalija Prasnikar said
There are few issues here.
First, as you said you can make your own apps dpi aware, I have been doing that for the last 15 years. If we put aside that you have to fix some buggy VCL components yourself, that approach no longer works since Windows 8.1 and per-monitor dpi support.
And second, you cannot make Delphi IDE high dpi aware. As developer, you will be stuck at regular dpi monitors, or will end up using uncomfortable blurry IDE.
David Heffernan said
Delphi IDE is neither here nor there. And in any case, the failure of Scaled to round trip via different dpi scalings puts paid to that idea. So for dev you really need all devs to stick to the same dpi, probably 96dpi. And yes, per monitor dpi awareness would be a bind. But the need for that is low at the moment. The need for supporting >120dpi is very real and present, and actually easy enough to do.
Michael said
So do I. But tweaks is private solution in place which must have common best practice. Another source of pain is 3rd components. I have some links to articles but it’s written in Russian. Can you share your experience?
jpluimers said
I wish I could, but I’ve been doing mostly back-end work lately.
So I’m interested in people sharing experience about doing DPI and Hi DPI aware applications in Delphi. In any language (:
Michael said
OK.
http://www.delphinotes.ru/2013/06/vcl-form-and-frame-scale-fix.html – full solution as it’s presented.
http://www.stackprinter.com/export?service=stackoverflow&question=8296784&printer=false&linktohome=true :) to David Heffernan
Michael said
OK.
http://www.delphinotes.ru/2013/06/vcl-form-and-frame-scale-fix.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8296784/how-do-i-make-my-gui-behave-well-when-windows-font-scaling-is-greater-than-100 :) to David Heffernan
Welcome to world of hurt.
IL said
Hi Michael,
Are you talking about the Nick Zverev’s BaseForms article series http://www.delphinotes.ru/2013/06/vcl-form-and-frame-scale-fix.html and BaseForms GitHub repo https://github.com/delphinotes/BaseForms/ ?
I’ve already mentioned his project in this G+ post https://plus.google.com/100741545911129784087/posts/STvFdCZoWjT and Nick has subscribed to comments in it as seen from the latest comment.
If so I could possibly translate his posts with his permission first.
Btw, +Jeroen, could you make this comment entry box a bit larger? Now its height is mere 4,5 lines in IE10 (: Thx!
jpluimers said
Sorry that I can’t make the box larger by default. It’s one of the many things I hate about WordPress.
David Heffernan said
Even without tweaking, you pretty much get there with manifest and Scaled=True. Of course, you have to stop using fixed sized image lists, but they have always been a bad idea. Well, a dreadful idea.