On screen size vs screen size
Sep. 5th, 2006 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoIgnoring the technology actually used to create the display (CRT, LCD, plasma, projection, whatever), there are certain characteristics of computer displays that are commonly confused:
- physical screen size. Measured in millimeters x millimeters, or inches by inches, or approximated by a diagonal measurement (14", 16", 19"...) and an aspect ratio (4:3 if not otherwise stated, 16:9 or 16:10 if widescreen.
-logical screen size, often called "resolution", but it isn't. Pixel count in columns by rows: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1280x768, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, 2048x1536...
- screen resolution. Measured in dots-per-inch or dots-per-cm. 65dpi, 72dpi, 90dpi, 120dpi, 144dpi... this is the result of dividing the logical screen size by the physical screen size.
When you ask someone what size screen they are using, you might get either of the first two responses. When you ask what resolution they are using, you might get any of the three.
How are they important? Well, physical screen size provides an angle of view. If you sit a little less than arm's length from a screen, a 12" screen is tiny, and a 20" screen is pretty nice. A 30" screen is almost overkill... almost. But given a particular physical size, higher resolution (or a larger logical screen size, same thing) is always better. Due to stupidities in the way windowing systems used to handle these things, people often have the notion that a higher resolution screen means everything gets smaller, and thus harder to see. But a modern windowing system renders text and scalable graphics in the same physical size regardless of the logical size, so things remain the same visible size, but more dots are used to draw them, and so they are easier to read -- text is smoother, graphics have more detail.
At home, I use two 17" monitors running at 1600x1200. This doesn't feel like enough visual space any more, although it is generally enough logical space. At work, I have a 19" monitor now running at 2048x1536 (Until Friday it was at 1600x1200, which felt a little loose). This is also not quite enough visual space -- and now it doesn't feel like enough logical space, either. What to do, what to do...
- physical screen size. Measured in millimeters x millimeters, or inches by inches, or approximated by a diagonal measurement (14", 16", 19"...) and an aspect ratio (4:3 if not otherwise stated, 16:9 or 16:10 if widescreen.
-logical screen size, often called "resolution", but it isn't. Pixel count in columns by rows: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1280x768, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, 2048x1536...
- screen resolution. Measured in dots-per-inch or dots-per-cm. 65dpi, 72dpi, 90dpi, 120dpi, 144dpi... this is the result of dividing the logical screen size by the physical screen size.
When you ask someone what size screen they are using, you might get either of the first two responses. When you ask what resolution they are using, you might get any of the three.
How are they important? Well, physical screen size provides an angle of view. If you sit a little less than arm's length from a screen, a 12" screen is tiny, and a 20" screen is pretty nice. A 30" screen is almost overkill... almost. But given a particular physical size, higher resolution (or a larger logical screen size, same thing) is always better. Due to stupidities in the way windowing systems used to handle these things, people often have the notion that a higher resolution screen means everything gets smaller, and thus harder to see. But a modern windowing system renders text and scalable graphics in the same physical size regardless of the logical size, so things remain the same visible size, but more dots are used to draw them, and so they are easier to read -- text is smoother, graphics have more detail.
At home, I use two 17" monitors running at 1600x1200. This doesn't feel like enough visual space any more, although it is generally enough logical space. At work, I have a 19" monitor now running at 2048x1536 (Until Friday it was at 1600x1200, which felt a little loose). This is also not quite enough visual space -- and now it doesn't feel like enough logical space, either. What to do, what to do...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 01:14 am (UTC)I would love to have more pixels without things getting smaller. What modern operating systems support that? Not Windows (XP or 2000); if I change logical screen size all my text and graphics change size. I can then, in some cases, change their sizes; this works minimally for fonts (I can choose "large" or "normal" at the OS level) and not at all for icons. So then I can change the defaults in all my applications, or at least the ones that support that, and, again, usually that means I can set fonts but not anything else. There doesn't seem to be a good global solution.
BTW, all of this makes the notion of font point sizes pretty meaningless. If I set my browser to, say, 16pt, I'm not really getting 16pt -- in particular, I'm not getting the same size as I would with "16pt" under a different screen size. "Point" sizes are relative modifiers.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 01:22 am (UTC)I'm using mostly GNOME apps with XFCE desktop environment on Debian Linux. When I looked up the specs of my big clunky CRT and changed resolutions, here are the adjustments I made:
- I told X that the DPI had changed.
- I told XFCE that I wanted a bigger font in two places: one affected all GNOME apps, the other affected the decorations on the windows. Window decorations scaled with the font size.
- I told my terminal launcher (not GNOME because I have weird requirements) to use a new font. GNOME Terminal adapted automatically.
- Firefox is theoretically a GNOME-compliant app but maintains its own prefs. I adjusted things there, too.
That took care of everything. I installed a new GNOME app today (bonfire, a CD/DVD burner) and just like all other GNOME apps, it picked up the standard settings.