? about resolution independence

[macjay]

Does resolution independence mean that you will be able to run a 1440x900 native display at 1280x800 or even 1152x768 and have it be perfectly clear, rather than the way it is blurry now?

Thanks.

 

[Chone]

I believe resolution indepence means an icon (for example the Apple menubar) will look the same size (and quality) regardless of the resolution of the display (hence the term resolution indepence), that is the space an item takes won't be defined by pixels (which have varying physical properties) but rather actual physical measurements, for example an item could defined as occupying an inch instead of 50 pixels for example, so the item will look 2 inches at any resolution as opposed to extremely big in low pixel density resolutions and extremely small in high pixel density resolutions.

I could be wrong though.

 

[iMeowbot]

Does resolution independence mean that you will be able to run a 1440x900 native display at 1280x800 or even 1152x768 and have it be perfectly clear, rather than the way it is blurry now?

Ideally, it will mean that you can always run your display at its native resolution, and you'll be able to scale the interface to the size you want without jaggies or blurs. Many applications will need updates to really take advantage of this and not look silly.

 

[someguy]

Does resolution independence mean that you will be able to run a 1440x900 native display at 1280x800 or even 1152x768 and have it be perfectly clear, rather than the way it is blurry now?

Thanks.

Hard to say as this feature is yet to be fully implemented in any final release OS (as far as I know, anyway).

My guess is that seeing as how the interface can be scaled to match beautifully to any resolution, I would imagine that you would be able to run an LCD at lower-than-native resolution and end up with a clear picture. It may take a bit of tweaking, and I could be entirely wrong to begin with.

What resolution independence really means is that 1440x900 native displays will be a thing of the past. 😉

 

[Chone]

Also, a good way to understand it is by this, for example, open a 3D FPS in your computer, set in on 640x480 and play a game, now set it to 1280x1024, what happens? Your gun and enemies and everything is the same size (their size is resolution independent), GUI elements ARE resolution dependent and hence why they look MUCH smaller at bigger resolutions while the 3d renders retain their same size, except 1280x1024 looks much cleaner.

This means, the GUI in Leopard can be set to be the same size across ALL resolutions, higher resolutions will look more detailed, I imagine this specific size can be completely customizable AND I also imagine this feature can be turned off as well.

It is a rather cool feature, but it doesn't mean you can run a 1280x1024 LCD run at 1024x768 and retain quality, you'd have to invent a new non-pixel fixed display technology to achieve that 😛 like CRTs.