Does the Superbar still look like crap at 120DPI?

[C++]

One of my small annoyances in Windows has always been that when you increase the font DPI, all the 16x16 icons in title bars and in the notification area become distorted. Is this damn bug fixed in Windows 7?

[chrisj1968]

i hear ya bro. I'm using 120DPI with vista now and my chrome icon look like I made it with windows paint :p

[Ambroos]

DPI Settings are completely fixed in Windows 7. They demonstrated it at PDC, and it all looks great.

Screenies:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/...er-than-your-7/

[C++]

DPI Settings are completely fixed in Windows 7. They demonstrated it at PDC, and it all looks great.

Screenies:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/...er-than-your-7/

Dammit, that's not fixed at all... 120DPI still stretches 16x16 icons, and it looks like ass. :crazy:

[Kirkburn]

Dammit, that's not fixed at all... 120DPI still stretches 16x16 icons, and it looks like ass. :crazy:

Er, so crappy res icons look crappy when stretched? Why does this not surprise me?

What are you expecting to happen?

[C++]

Er, so crappy res icons look crappy when stretched? Why does this not surprise me?

What are you expecting to happen?

I don't know, maybe not stretching them? There is no reason why they couldn't stay at 16x16 with only the clickable area around them being increased. Or how about downscaling 32 pixel versions instead?

Yea, clearly there is nothing that could be done...

[gigapixels Veteran]

I don't know, maybe not stretching them? There is no reason why they couldn't stay at 16x16 with only the clickable area around them being increased. Or how about downscaling 32 pixel versions instead?

Yea, clearly there is nothing that could be done...

Not stretching them is just ridiculous. The whole point of increasing the DPI is for people who cannot see the interface clearly at the smaller DPI settings, so keeping an icon at its original size while increasing the size of everything else will leave that icon just as hard to see as it was before. And as far as using a larger-sized icon and downscaling it, that would require that developers include a larger-sized icon for the system tray icon, which probably won't happen often, if at all.

[C++]

Not stretching them is just ridiculous. The whole point of increasing the DPI is for people who cannot see the interface clearly at the smaller DPI settings, so keeping an icon at its original size while increasing the size of everything else will leave that icon just as hard to see as it was before. And as far as using a larger-sized icon and downscaling it, that would require that developers include a larger-sized icon for the system tray icon, which probably won't happen often, if at all.

How does stretching an icon by 2 frickin' pixels make anything more visible? It only makes icons blurry and harder to read. Look at the screenshot.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-conten...2008/10/120.png

[Denis W. Veteran]

I don't know, maybe not stretching them? There is no reason why they couldn't stay at 16x16 with only the clickable area around them being increased. Or how about downscaling 32 pixel versions instead?

Yea, clearly there is nothing that could be done...

Microsoft can't just magically whip up 32x32 tray icons for those apps who only designate 16x16 icons for the tray, especially animating/changing icons. In any case, for apps such as Windows Live Messenger, they won't use the tray anymore, instead opting for the taskbar button instead.

They have done their own part to properly scale up their own main three tray icons: Volume, Power, and Network look pixel sharp at 120 DPI. Action Center's icon in 6801 is gone from the later builds.

Also I noticed Windows 7 uses XP-style DPI scaling by default... any reason?

[gigapixels Veteran]

How does stretching an icon by 2 frickin' pixels make anything more visible? It only makes icons blurry and harder to read. Look at the screenshot.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-conten...2008/10/120.png

I already looked at the screenshot. I'd say that's far better than leaving it the same size as before.

[Ambroos]

Overall DPI scaling is done a lot nicer than it was on Vista.

[Kirkburn]

How does stretching an icon by 2 frickin' pixels make anything more visible?

We are talking about increasing the size of stuff on the screen ... so yes, it will be increased in size, as that is the point.

If the icons weren't scaled up, it wouldn't be doing the job its supposed to be doing. Yes, this is bad for old icons at crap resolutions. No, there isn't some magical solution.

[Simon Veteran]

The "magical solution" everyone is looking for lies in vectorized graphics, rather than rasterized ones. Microsoft should be supporting them, but as far as I know they do not. SVG rendering is something that should, without a doubt, be built into Windows 7 for icons, as an *option* for developers. You'll still get the ones who like the PNG's, but with a little extra effort, those who make the icons can have one that scales infinitely.

But as for the blurry icons, if 2 pixels doesn't make a difference for being able to see them, then a) you probably don't need to change your DPI anyway, and b) it shouldn't blur them to the point of distracting you. DPI scaling compensates for smaller items on a screen, and a 16x16 icon is definitely one of them.

[C++]

The "magical solution" everyone is looking for lies in vectorized graphics, rather than rasterized ones. Microsoft should be supporting them, but as far as I know they do not. SVG rendering is something that should, without a doubt, be built into Windows 7 for icons, as an *option* for developers. You'll still get the ones who like the PNG's, but with a little extra effort, those who make the icons can have one that scales infinitely.

But as for the blurry icons, if 2 pixels doesn't make a difference for being able to see them, then a) you probably don't need to change your DPI anyway, and b) it shouldn't blur them to the point of distracting you. DPI scaling compensates for smaller items on a screen, and a 16x16 icon is definitely one of them.

But it does make a difference, it makes them less readable than just keeping them at 16 pixels. Here is a random screenshot of someone's notification area at 120DPI. Would you call this "more visible"?

And yes I do actually need the 120DPI setting, for the fonts, which is what the option boasts to increase in the first place. A 15.4" WUXGA screen isn't very readable at 96DPI.

[Denis W. Veteran]

They could try coding in a bilinear filter to upscale the icons, much like how Vista stretches non-DPI aware windows by default. Would that work?

[C++]

I stand by my first suggestion of just keeping the icons at 16 pixels. If you need bigger icons, cursors or window handles, separate options exist for that. The font DPI option has no reason to enlarge things other than fonts, especially when it actually makes those other things less readable than they were before. In the end, this option is purely about readability. And clearly, what it does to icons does not help in that department.

[Kirkburn]

Where is this referred to as "font" DPI (in Windows 7), and how are you making the distinction for "readability"? How does readability solely mean bigger fonts, when a lot of programs and functions are icon based, especially for the less literate, or hard of sight?

In addition, you realise huge fonts and small everything else would look far far more ridiculous, with fonts going outside their bounds, icons being in the wrong places, etc, etc...

Yes, those icons look bad - few will dispute that - but I don't think that is entirely the fault of Windows - developers should be creating higher resolution icons. SVG would fix it, but only for future icons. It does appear that the filter for old icon could be improved, but there's only so much you can do for pixel artwork.

[jakem1]

The "magical solution" everyone is looking for lies in vectorized graphics, rather than rasterized ones. Microsoft should be supporting them, but as far as I know they do not. SVG rendering is something that should, without a doubt, be built into Windows 7 for icons, as an *option* for developers. You'll still get the ones who like the PNG's, but with a little extra effort, those who make the icons can have one that scales infinitely.

But as for the blurry icons, if 2 pixels doesn't make a difference for being able to see them, then a) you probably don't need to change your DPI anyway, and b) it shouldn't blur them to the point of distracting you. DPI scaling compensates for smaller items on a screen, and a 16x16 icon is definitely one of them.

From memory Microsoft have stated that they don't intend to use SVG for icons because large icons with lots of detail become meaningless at 16x16. Microsoft's position on icons is that 16x16 icons should display a slightly different image to 32x32 and above to make the meaning of the icon clear and recognisable with the smaller pixel count.

[Andy1369]

What's the difference between XP-style DPI and the present, Vista-style DPI scaling? Thanks.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

There's a blog post on the E7 blog about vectorized icons. It isn't the fix-all "magic" solution that some people here make it out to be. That's why nobody implements them.

Notification icons other than the system ones are hidden by default now, so they'll be less of an eyesore. You can't selectively scale things that may or may not look bad... Windows tries to determine if apps are high DPI aware and do special scaling on the app window if it does not, but this is a compatibility measure not a real solution.

The right solution is for apps to do a better job supporting high DPI. We can help by giving developers tools to make this easier, and by building some high DPI awareness into standard components that developers use, but in the end it's up to them to provide the appropriate icons and to test their layout logic at higher DPI settings.

DPI is not font size. If you want to change just the font size, there is an option for that and it will have no impact on your icons.

I run Win7 at the 150% DPI setting at home on my 1080p media center, and it works great.

[Kirkburn]

Yeah, I retract my intimation that vector graphics would "solve" this issue, given the resulting small icon readability problems.

Thanks for the extra info Brandon :)

[notuptome2004]

the nice thing tho is winodw 7 gives developers a clear challage for them to get up and make better looking higher quality icons. anyways