Re: Units and resolution independence for gtk+

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>]

On Wed, 2008-08-06 at 20:40 -0400, David Zeuthen wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-08-06 at 20:08 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > I think what I mean is that most of the UI should use units in points,
> > not in em's.  That is, increasing font size should not necessarily
> > increase all UI elements.  I can't think of any concrete cases though.
> >
> > If you just use dpi though, (replace GTK_UNIT_ONE_TWELFTH_EM with
> > GTK_UNIT_POINT), then the font size can be used more purposefully: to
> > change text size relative to other UI, where in your current design,
> > there's not much point in having different font size and dpi.
> > 
> > Makes sense?
> 
> I think in general you want the UI elements to scale along with how big
> the font appears on the screen; in other words, I think em is a more
> natural unit than point. But I'm no expert.

Sure, then hide the font size and only expose the dpi setting as an
slider.  Like Apple does...

> We could also have GDK_UNIT_POINT (not hard to add) but I can't imagine
> any uses for it...

I still like being able to set the relative sizes.  For example, some
scripts require larger font size to be legible.  Persian fonts typically
render at 140% to visually look the same size as Latin fonts (because of
larger descent values BTW).

>      David
-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

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