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Retinizer (for MacBook Pro with Retina display)

M

mikelpr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 18, 2012
10
0
Mexico
Retinizer is a small app I wrote that enables apps that look pixelated to be displayed at retina.

It seems most Carbon apps are affected by this.
I've tested it with many apps and it seems you should only keep it away from Adobe CS6 apps.

Please note that only UI widgets (text, buttons, windows, etc.) will be displayed at 2x
after retinizing; custom graphics will still look pixelated.

Homepage: http://retinizer.mikelpr.com
Download (v0.4): https://sites.google.com/a/mikelpr.com/files/home/Retinizer040.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

To use, drag an app (and make sure it's closed) into the window and click the Retinize! button.

Please report any bugs that you find and apps that don't work :)
 
Last edited:
mikelpr said:
Retinizer is a small app I wrote that enables apps that look pixelated to be displayed at 2x.

It seems most Carbon apps are affected by this.
I've tested it with many apps and it seems you should only keep it away from Adobe CS6 apps.

Blog post: http://www.mikelpr.com/post/29785063765/retinizer
Download: https://sites.google.com/a/mikelpr.com/files/home/Retinizer.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

Please report any bugs that you find and apps that don't work :)
Click to expand...

How does this work on applications with graphic files at a lower resolution?
 
Blackberryroid said:
How does this work on applications with graphic files at a lower resolution?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I only mentioned that on the blog post and not on the forum post. It only enables apps to draw UI widgets, such as labels, buttons, etc at 2x. Graphic files stay pixelated.
 
Just tried on Skype, Word and Mathematica. Obviously some interface elements still looks bad but the text is now sharp, much better to work with these settings. Just a question. I have problems in retinizing Wolfram System Modeler, when I drag it on your app it quits. Can you explain a little more what your app does such that I can try to manually change the files? Or you may download a trial of System Modeler from Wolfram website and try to figure out what's wrong. I think that if you certify your app and make it a little more stable you can sell it on the Mac App store, would easily become a hit till developers optimize their app or apple provides a fix.
 
matteolesinigo said:
Just a question. I have problems in retinizing Wolfram System Modeler, when I drag it on your app it quits.
Click to expand...

Please try the new version I just uploaded (v0.3). I found that it would crash with some apps without a bundle identifier, as it expected all apps to have one. It seems, however, some developers remove the bundle identifier for some reason. AFAIK the app bundle specs mark them as required but OS X has no problem opening apps without a bundle identifier. These apps usually don't use the user defaults preferences system so they don't include a bundle identifier.

Anyway, my app sets a key in the app's user defaults, so if that app has no bundle identifier, you won't be able to retinize it, not even manually.

A workaround is to open the app's Info.plist (Appname.app -> Show package contents/Contents/Info.plist) and add a fake CFBundleIdentifier e.g. com.wolfram.system-modeler. Then my app will work :)

Try the app with the new version. If it shows a message saying that the app does not use the OS X preferences system, then that was the reason it was crashing. If it still crashes please tell me.

EDIT: I'm pushing an update soon that will ask you if you'd like to add a fake bundle identifier.

matteolesinigo said:
I think that if you certify your app and make it a little more stable you can sell it on the Mac App store, would easily become a hit till developers optimize their app or apple provides a fix.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be able to publish it in the Mac App Store due to the sandbox.
 
Last edited:
Hi mikelpr,
I have just registered to the forum for thanking you! This is an amazing app, I was getting crazy with the low Office resolution.
You saved my eyes! :)
 
Queen6 said:
Have you tried Retinizer with Microsoft Office 2011; Word, Excel and PowerPoint, thx in advance
Click to expand...

I have only tested basic stuff but it works. Word works fine, Excel only displays low-res text in a cell when you're typing stuff but displays retina text when you hit enter, and PowerPoint displays high-res text most of the time until you start a Slide Show, but I don't think that matters much since you're probably going to use a projector for that

----------
BonAce said:
Hi mikelpr,
I have just registered to the forum for thanking you! This is an amazing app, I was getting crazy with the low Office resolution.
You saved my eyes! :)
Click to expand...

You're welcome!
 
sk8r1230 said:
Anyone test with twitter?? Improve app experience?
Click to expand...
Nope. AFAIK it uses a backbuffer to render text. Can't help that :(

Anyway, rumour has it Twitter has stopped development on the Mac app, so I'd recommend waiting for Tweetbot's release.
 
Kindle

Mikelpr,

Thanks for putting this up for us to try out. Will it work with the Kindle app? I find that the non-native kindle text is what bothers me the most.

Thanks
 
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