Will 10.5 be resolution independent? (Scale interface, etc.)

[Wolfpup]

I was asking on another forum about Vista-supposedly it was going to be able to do this, but the feature was cut (possibly to get resurrected in a service pack?)

But another person thinks OS X 10.5 is going to have that feature.

Anyone know? I can't see anything about it on Apple's site, but I might not be looking in the right places.

 

[72930]

It will be

 

[bousozoku]

Supposedly, a later release of 10.4 already has a lot of the behind-the-scenes pieces to make resolution independence work but it should be available in 10.5.

For that matter, what happened to Quartz 2D Extreme?

 

[Wolfpup]

It's great to hear 10.5 is going to do this-about time someone did! (Although ironically Apple's notebooks already have pretty reasonable resolutions, so it's not as needed as on a 17" screen with over 1900 lines...)

Supposedly, a later release of 10.4 already has a lot of the behind-the-scenes pieces to make resolution independence work but it should be available in 10.5.

For that matter, what happened to Quartz 2D Extreme?

What's Quartz 2D Extreme? Is that just regular Quartz Extreme like they used to talk about back in 10.1, 10.2? Isn't it still in there?

I get all these names mixed up!

 

[MacsRgr8]

For that matter, what happened to Quartz 2D Extreme?

Indeed!
Is it still disabled by default?

 

[Chef Medeski]

Indeed!
Is it still disabled by default?

Yup I turned it on. It doesnt change much except make scrolling a bit more choppy, well atleast in Finder. Altough this is on a 12" PB, so while its supposed to utilize the GPU more, I dont have that great of one, so take my saying with a grain of salt.

 

[Daveway]

Here are some slides from the Mac OSX State of the Union address at WWDC 06.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Here are some slides from the Mac OSX State of the Union address at WWDC 06.

Cheers! 😎

 

[steve_hill4]

For me, this will be one of the most important steps ever taken in the history of the GUI. Not just for those who are visually impaired, but will allow manufacturers to develop much higher resolution displays and graphics cards.

For me, HDTV is too low a resolution, UHDV is closer to what I think we should be working with. That will take many years, but should be a target and computers will lead the way forward for that. Imagine having your 20" iMac looking as crisp, if not crisper, as it does now, but with a higher resolution and the elements still remaining constant. The windows and text on the screen looking like they have been drawn onto the screen, rather than generated by a graphics chip, restricted by the size of the pixels.

I'll be hammering that point home, and I think that every store with Leopard on their display Macs should have windows etc all at the same size, irrespective of the screen size, to allow people to see that the resolution of a larger screen, (or same size comparing 17" iMac to 17" MBP), doesn't only mean you can see more on your screen, but for the same size window, it looks better.

 

[Wolfpup]

So those screens are from 10.5?

This is awesome. And yep, among other things it finally means you can use as high of a resolution as you want 🙂

The way we do in now is just silly. I know Windows has a "DPI" setting, but if you change it from it's default, it just makes everything look weird typically, isn't uniform across all programs correctly, etc.

 

[djejrejk]

So those screens are from 10.5?

This is awesome. And yep, among other things it finally means you can use as high of a resolution as you want 🙂

The way we do in now is just silly. I know Windows has a "DPI" setting, but if you change it from it's default, it just makes everything look weird typically, isn't uniform across all programs correctly, etc.

Im going to sue Jobs when in blind 5 years from now 😱

 

[Wolfpup]

I just found out from another forum that Vista basically does this too. Here's some info on it:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms699473.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archive/2006/12/02/dpi-scaling-in-windows-vista.aspx

If I'm understanding it right, Vista itself, Office, many newer apps, etc. respond correctly to the DPI setting. But what's different is Vista includes a work around for all the apps that don't-it uses the 3D hardware to scale programs so they look right, and translates where you're clicking to where the program really expects the click.

It's about time!

 

[mkrishnan]

Has anyone actually seen this in action in Vista? I haven't seen it reported on much. And I also wonder because... Windows Mobile has this feature, and it's a complete mess. 🙁 But it would be great if it were properly implemented in Vista. I'm so sick of everyone constantly turning the screen resolutions on the clinic computers down to 800x600... and god, yes, they actually do this! 🙁

 

[dejo]

(Although ironically Apple's notebooks already have pretty reasonable resolutions, so it's not as needed as on a 17" screen with over 1900 lines...)

Actually the higher the resolutions, the greater the need for resolution-independence! One should be able to use an OS on a 30" display and not have icons and such shrunk so small that they are nearly unusable.

 

[Wolfpup]

Actually the higher the resolutions, the greater the need for resolution-independence! One should be able to use an OS on a 30" display and not have icons and such shrunk so small that they are nearly unusable.

Yeah, that's what I mean. IMO a 17" screen with over 1900 lines of resolution is unusable (whereas Apple's notebooks are more reasonable resolutions that are more usable for the size).

 

[mkrishnan]

Yeah, that's what I mean. IMO a 17" screen with over 1900 lines of resolution is unusable (whereas Apple's notebooks are more reasonable resolutions that are more usable for the size).

Who has a 17" screen with 1900 lines (vertical) of resolution? There are 1920x1200 etc screens...but vertically?

 

[Chundles]

Yeah, that's what I mean. IMO a 17" screen with over 1900 lines of resolution is unusable (whereas Apple's notebooks are more reasonable resolutions that are more usable for the size).

Resolution Independence will make ultra-high resolution screens the norm as the UI elements no longer depend on the size of the pixels.

I'm looking forward to the day when we can get a 13.3" MacBook with a 1920x1200 screen - imagine how crisp and detailed the UI elements would be on something like that. You wouldn't see any change in the size of say, the menu bar over the current MacBook but with so many more pixels it would look amazing.

Then when you need it you can have native 1080p playback.

Ultra-high res screens with Resolution independent OS's is going to really make a difference.

 

[Wolfpup]

Who has a 17" screen with 1900 lines (vertical) of resolution? There are 1920x1200 etc screens...but vertically?

Yeah, that's what I mean. That's completely unusable for many people.

Has anyone actually seen this in action in Vista? I haven't seen it reported on much. And I also wonder because... Windows Mobile has this feature, and it's a complete mess. 🙁 But it would be great if it were properly implemented in Vista. I'm so sick of everyone constantly turning the screen resolutions on the clinic computers down to 800x600... and god, yes, they actually do this! 🙁

Yeah, I'm worried if it'll actually work too (for both OSs for that matter). I'd think Apple would have a huge head start since they've been doing the interface in 3D since OS X came out, so hopefully it'll work...

 

[Chundles]

Yeah, that's what I mean. That's completely unusable for many people.

At the moment.

Res independence will make screens like that the norm and they will be wonderfully useful for everyone.