4 ms·

Forgive my ignorance since I've been on Mac for so long, but does windows still not do UI scaling?

by seanalltogether 10y ago

maxxxxx 10y ago
Windows 7 is still pretty bad. Maybe windows 10 is better
- dbg31415 10y ago
  It sort of is, in that it sort of works... but scaling on Windows 10 still introduces a bunch of UX issues. Especially if you pair a Retina laptop with a 1080p external and try and use both side by side.
  - ReverseCold 10y ago
    DPI scaling is pretty good, only time it's an issue is when people use older versions of qt or Windows forms (?) which shouldn't be an issue for many people.
- penagwin 10y ago
  Forgive me, but windows 7's last large update (Service Pack 1) was "February 22, 2011; 6 years ago" according to wikipedia. As this was before high resolution monitors really took off at all, you can see why windows 7 doesn't have great support. I can't say anything about windows 10's support (The highest I have is 1080p)
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    Windows 7 is what my company and many others still use. I only described what I have seen.
tzakrajs 10y ago
It does scaling well now and also handles multiple monitors much better than macos. I love that it doesn't matter what displayport I use, Windows remembers the monitors and doesn't force you to swap cables until your monitors position match their configuration in the OS.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  It does scaling well for apps which have been updated to fully support the UWP scaling APIs. Everything else is quite disappointing and wildly inconsistent. In my business, apps which use the UWP account for maybe 15% of usage time? I've encountered many situations where one cannot even achieve clear text, at any size, for a given app without overriding the default scaling system and using the "not recommended" custom scaling factor (i.e. the legacy controls). Multiple monitor support on Windows 10 I've also found to be very dependent on your graphics drivers and hardware configuration, as it always has been.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
Windows does UI scaling, but you can't say the same for it's application ecosystem. Any app with a custom UI needs to explicitly support scaling.
mi100hael 10y ago
Windows has HiDPI support pretty well nailed down AFAIK. Laptops like the Dell XPS have been shipping with HiDPI screens for a while. Linux support is spottier, especially when using multiple displays of varying DPIs, but even Gnome works pretty well on a HiDPI laptop these days.
- Tepix 10y ago
  I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS 13 (3200x1800) and it works well as long as I use 2.0 as the magnification value. Other values such as 1.83 are broken.
  - mnw21cam 10y ago
    I'm using XFCE (Debian unstable) on a Zenbook (3200x1800) and that works really well too. There isn't a magnification value to set - rather you set the display DPI.
- kuschku 10y ago
  > Linux support is spottier, especially when using multiple displays of varying DPIs, but even Gnome works pretty well on a HiDPI laptop these days. Actually, Gnome is the only one that doesn’t do proper HiDPI support. It only supports 96 and 192dpi - not any other ratio. In comparison, Qt supports different ratios for every screen, all ratios specified as float – you can even scale up, down, whatever. The environment variable used is QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=DisplayPort-2=1.75;HDMI-A-0=1.08;
bluedino 10y ago
Sort of, but a lot of stuff doesn't scale. Java apps, things like WebEx...
- kuschku 10y ago
  Actually, Java Swing and JavaFX do scale. JavaFX does not scale on Linux, though, because it uses GTK to determine the scale ratio, and GTK is still broken. Qt’s had QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=DisplayPort-2=1.75;HDMI-A-0=1.08; for years, but GTK still only supports one global scale factor, and that’s limited to 96dpi or 192dpi. So JavaFX only scales to these, while Java Swing scales perfectly (but still only handles one global scale factor)

Forgive my ignorance since I've been on Mac for so long, but does windows still not do UI scaling?

maxxxxx 10y ago

Windows 7 is still pretty bad. Maybe windows 10 is better

dbg31415 10y ago
It sort of is, in that it sort of works... but scaling on Windows 10 still introduces a bunch of UX issues. Especially if you pair a Retina laptop with a 1080p external and try and use both side by side.
- ReverseCold 10y ago
  DPI scaling is pretty good, only time it's an issue is when people use older versions of qt or Windows forms (?) which shouldn't be an issue for many people.
penagwin 10y ago
Forgive me, but windows 7's last large update (Service Pack 1) was "February 22, 2011; 6 years ago" according to wikipedia. As this was before high resolution monitors really took off at all, you can see why windows 7 doesn't have great support. I can't say anything about windows 10's support (The highest I have is 1080p)
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  Windows 7 is what my company and many others still use. I only described what I have seen.

tzakrajs 10y ago

It does scaling well now and also handles multiple monitors much better than macos. I love that it doesn't matter what displayport I use, Windows remembers the monitors and doesn't force you to swap cables until your monitors position match their configuration in the OS.

ghostly_s 10y ago
It does scaling well for apps which have been updated to fully support the UWP scaling APIs. Everything else is quite disappointing and wildly inconsistent. In my business, apps which use the UWP account for maybe 15% of usage time? I've encountered many situations where one cannot even achieve clear text, at any size, for a given app without overriding the default scaling system and using the "not recommended" custom scaling factor (i.e. the legacy controls). Multiple monitor support on Windows 10 I've also found to be very dependent on your graphics drivers and hardware configuration, as it always has been.

theandrewbailey 10y ago

Windows does UI scaling, but you can't say the same for it's application ecosystem. Any app with a custom UI needs to explicitly support scaling.

mi100hael 10y ago

Windows has HiDPI support pretty well nailed down AFAIK. Laptops like the Dell XPS have been shipping with HiDPI screens for a while. Linux support is spottier, especially when using multiple displays of varying DPIs, but even Gnome works pretty well on a HiDPI laptop these days.

Tepix 10y ago
I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS 13 (3200x1800) and it works well as long as I use 2.0 as the magnification value. Other values such as 1.83 are broken.
- mnw21cam 10y ago
  I'm using XFCE (Debian unstable) on a Zenbook (3200x1800) and that works really well too. There isn't a magnification value to set - rather you set the display DPI.
kuschku 10y ago
> Linux support is spottier, especially when using multiple displays of varying DPIs, but even Gnome works pretty well on a HiDPI laptop these days. Actually, Gnome is the only one that doesn’t do proper HiDPI support. It only supports 96 and 192dpi - not any other ratio. In comparison, Qt supports different ratios for every screen, all ratios specified as float – you can even scale up, down, whatever. The environment variable used is QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=DisplayPort-2=1.75;HDMI-A-0=1.08;

bluedino 10y ago

Sort of, but a lot of stuff doesn't scale. Java apps, things like WebEx...

kuschku 10y ago
Actually, Java Swing and JavaFX do scale. JavaFX does not scale on Linux, though, because it uses GTK to determine the scale ratio, and GTK is still broken. Qt’s had QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=DisplayPort-2=1.75;HDMI-A-0=1.08; for years, but GTK still only supports one global scale factor, and that’s limited to 96dpi or 192dpi. So JavaFX only scales to these, while Java Swing scales perfectly (but still only handles one global scale factor)