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Menu scaling problem (120dpi)

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depp.jones
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Menu scaling problem (120dpi)

I'm using V2.0b4 (XP SP3) and on my 120dpi display, all background graphics are scaled up (possibly to fix the icon-position problem that occured on hires displays a while ago). It seems to use the horrible scaling engine, XP uses on icons too, so my menu looks somewhat aweful.
See: Image

As I use a relatively small (17") screen with 1900x1200, switching to 96dpi is out of the question even with having good eyesight. Wink

Is it possible to add an option to a future version not to scale up the menu? Or possibly use another scaling engine? Upcoming theme support sounds really great but becomes less useful if elaborate graphics become quite sludgy. As I reckon, icon positions and text size are dpi-sensitive atm, maybe it's possible to make them absolute per option.

It's nothing great to complain as it does not affect functionality, but it appears to be a dent in PAs professional looks as other launchers scale quite well (without being such an unequalled overall package as PA).

Apart from that, the Menu 2.0 works flawless with its actual featureset. I'm looking forward to test beta 5 with its pronounced enhancements.

Thanks, dj

Bruce Pascoe
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...

Not that this is helpful for your particular case, but just my 2 cents: 1900x1200 is way too high a resolution for a 17" display. Generally monitors used for that resolution are 24" or bigger, which should give you an idea of how tiny your display is. Honestly I wouldn't recommend anything higher than 1280x800 for that size display. Even 1440x900 would be pushing it.

Anyway, not much the platform can do to fix this issue. I mean, it could do a smoother scale (it doesn't even appear to be doing bilinear), but even that wouldn't look very professional. Really the only way to do it well would be to make all the theme graphics a higher resolution and then scale them down depending on the user's DPI (this is why Vista icons are 256x256, incidentally), but that would make themes a lot bigger.

depp.jones
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Thanks but...

I work with that resolution since about 4 years (on an Precision M90 laptop, so screensize - depending on viewing distance - is not that much of a problem for me).

I know the mechanics behind scaling grapics, work with that all day. What bugs me is that even since the possibility to change dpi-settings in ms-win is about 15 years old, many application don't properly support that.
PA is an exception as it even "actively" maintains it's scaling. It would be really great though, if there were an option to choose. I don't really need scaling (it's even obstructive when trying to do theming as pixel positions become somewhat vague, so I stopped trying Smile ).
I assume that all that need to be changed is sizing and positioning of elements that now are dpi-dependent (relative) and should then be absolute. But it would possibly mean much change in PAs code so I consider it a fatuous wish (for maybe V3.0+).

See how theming and window resizing is done in other applications (e.g. winamp, appetizer...) shows that it sould be feasible. I could live with small text or icons.

But, as said, it's just looks...

John T. Haller
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Hmmm

Well, we added it in since most folks who have 120dpi screens thought the menu was too small (and hard to read). Sadly, it can't properly scale the themes even if we include the proper pixel for pixel size in our lineup (at least Delphi 2003 didn't, we just switched to Delphi 2010 and I haven't re-tested).

I can add in the ability to turn the scaling off as an advanced option if you'd like.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

depp.jones
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Wow, I really would

Wow, I really would appreciate that!
As said, on high dpi laptop displays, text or icon size is not as critical as it is on desktop displays.
Thanks

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