Resolution indpendence

[Barry Scott]

Eirik Byrkjeflot Anonsen wrote:
> Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com> writes:
>
>   
>> Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>>
>>     
>>>>> The upcoming GNOME will simply set it to 96.
>>>>>           
>>>> SRSLY?  That would be a regression.  Right now GNOME nicely detects my
>>>> 114dpi screen and uses right size fonts.  96 would look really small.
>>>>         
>>> +1
>>>
>>> 1. Exposing correct DPI is hard
>>>       
> [...]
>   
>>> but is necessary for correct text rendering,
>>>       
>> I take issue with that. I know that a lot of people are emotionally
>> invested in this being true, but I've been forcing X to 75dpi from the
>> first day that it attempted to use the physical resolution, and it has
>> never caused me any problems (whereas using the physical resolution
>> certainly has caused problems).
>>     
>
> Depends on the meaning of "correct".  Correct rendering (text or otherwise)
> requires knowledge of the dpi, if "correct" includes forcing specific
> real-world sizes.  However...
>
> [...]
>
>   
>> Ultimately, typical monitor resolutions are still too low to ignore
>> the pixel grid altogether. If you want to use physical dimensions
>> without parts of the UI being illegible due to rasterisation
>> artifacts, you have to "supersize" everything so that it's still
>> legible on even the lowest-resolution displays, wasting valuable
>> screen space on the majority of systems.
>>     
>
> Exactly.  With the current monitor resolutions, the interesting "real
> world" unit tends to be the pixel.  So my "resolution" is 1
> dot-per-pixel, regardless of how many dots-per-inch there are.
>
> I want a high resolution monitor to get more screen real estate, not
> to get better edge smoothing.  When we start approaching 300dpi
> graphics pipelines, I will probably change my mind, but that's still
> pretty far off it seems.
>
>   
Apple took a 200dpi laptop off the market because of lack of resolution 
independance
in the software. I'm not sure its that far off *if* the software can 
handle it.

Using DPI is the wrong thing to do for large format 40" etc screens as 
30pt is
unreadable a the sort of viewing distance that a 40" screen is viewed at. We
force 75dpi for this reason at the moment.

Barry