Dell XPS QHD 3200x1800 Display and IMATCH

[kiwilink]

Hi Everyone:

This may be a question just for Mario but maybe someone out there already has one of these newer Laptop displays. 

I'm thinking about upgrading to a new laptop and I'm hearing that some of the really high resolution laptops may have problems with some legacy applications.  Specifically, the fonts may not look clean and crisp as they do on a standard Laptop.  Apparently, just changing the resolution on the 3200x1800 Dell QHD XPS 15 to a lower resolution still causes problems with some older apps.

I'm also hearing that some folks using the newest MacBook Pro Retina may be experiencing similar problems.

Can you tell me if I went to one of the newer high resolution laptops would IMATCH have any issues on these displays?   

Thanks!!!

Michael

[Mario]

I have rather large monitors, but non of these massive high-rez screens so I cannot tell from my own experience. But IMatch is high-DPI enabled and adapts it's font sizes automatically to the Windows font sizes used for menus etc. For 'input' elements like the Metadata Panel, the Attributes Panel and the Keywords Panel you can configure custom font-sizes, which works around the extra stress these high-DPI screens may cause on some users after staring at them for a while.

See also this articles in the IMatch knowledge base for related information:

Using Large Icons for Toolbars in IMatch

Configuring IMatch For High-resolution Screens And For Easier Reading

[kiwilink]

Hi Mario:

I just installed the latest 5.4.12 IMATCH on this newly released Dell XPS 15" Laptop with the new 4K QHD 3200x1800 resolution screen.  I have attached 2 screen captures.  I went into the Preferences/Application tab and modified Menu Size, Toolbar size, and Icon Size and tried all three settings (Normal, Larger, Bigger) but none of the settings seemed to fix the problems you see in the screen captures.  If there are other settings that you think I should try let me know. 

I also wanted to know if I should change the "Assumed Output Resolution" which is set to 240 by default in the Preferences/Application tab.

The high res screen is spectacular for looking at the images but its very sensitive when I try to grab handles and resize panels within IMATCH.  From what I am reading about these new high res laptop screens other apps are having issues running on them also.  Anything that you think I should try let me know but the changes I have made so far within IMATCH have not really affected what I am seeing on the screen.

Michael

P.S.  I have not changed the resolution of the actual Laptop.  I am using it with the 3200x1800 resolution.

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[Mario]

The first screen shot looks like IMatch and the Microsoft runtime having severe drawing problems?
This has nothing to do with font sizes or resolution, it looks like graphic driver issues.

Which DPI settings do you use ("Make your font's bigger")?

The ID plate needs to be hidden or you need to make it bigger. It's just a sample and the standard size is set to the size of the bitmap. On such a dense display (Pressing 3200 pixels out of a laptop screen is insane) the size of the text is larger than the bitmap in the ID plate so either close it or change it to fit your screen rez.

The cropped text in the Welcome screen is strange, because I don't see this effect on my 3840 x 216ß monitor. Seems that the font width calculation is off, but it's based on the system font settings and should adapt automatically. I'll make a note.

The only problem I can see on your second screen shot is that the check list used in the dialog is overlapping it's entries. And that you need to resize the dialog a bit to make more room for the controls. When you look at other check box list controls in IMatch (e.g. the Value filter or the Current tab in the categories panel) do they also overlap?

I also wanted to know if I should change the "Assumed Output Resolution" which is set to 240 by default in the Preferences/Application tab.

This setting only controls how IMatch calculates the measurements displayed in the file window, e.g. when you display image dimensions in cm or in.

e when I try to grab handles and resize panels within IMATCH.

IMatch uses standard Windows controls for scroll bars and window frames. They should adapt to the screen res, as far as it is possible to adapt to such an insane resolution on such small screens. In my opinion, squeezing 3200 pixels on 15" is just madness. It's great for looking at images and maybe your fonts are sharp, but you need to blow them up to 150% or 200% to be able to read them. 3840 pixels on a 28" is already causing problems in many applications...

[Mario]

I could fix the cropped text on the Welcome screen (fixed pixel width used for the outer border, did not adapt to screen DPI).

I'm a bit at a loss regarding the check list box in your screen shot. It's a standard Microsoft control which is part of Windows / the Microsoft runtime environment I use. It should work on all screen resolutions. I checked it here from 96 to 157 DPI on W7 to W10 and it always looked good.

[kiwilink]

Thanks Mario for the response.  You asked "which DPI settings do I use?"  Are you referring to the Preferences/Application panel?  If so, I have it set to "Yes" under Use DPI setting in Image.  I have the "assumed Output Resolution" set to the default of 240.

I have seen one other overlap thus far (the drop down menu to the left of the sort order on the main screen), see attachment.  You asked about the value filter and it looks normal (see attachment).

I'm running other tests.  For example the font on the "Auto Paused because the threshold was reached is really really small (see attachment).

The "Change Item Size" slider on the main screen (see attachment) is really small and very sensitive.

I'm still testing this Laptop to find out what other applications may have similar problems.  IMATCH looks absolutely stunning on this thing but its very sensitive resizing panels and the icons are quite small.  I know there is probably nothing you can do for some of these issues but I thought it was a good idea for me to share these experiences as I'm sure other vendors are coming out with these high resolution screens.

Let me know if you have anything you'd like me to screen capture or if there are any other ideas you have for me to try.

Thanks Mario!

Mike


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[Mario]

I meant which system DPI settings you run for your monitor. Right-click desktop > Screen Resolution and there click on Make text and other items smaller or bigger.  This tells you the fon ratio you use 100%, 125%, 150% or 200% and the system DPI.

This setting allows you to cotnrol the font size used for certain Windows elements, which also impacts the font size used by IMatch for menus and most other measures. And also other applications which are DPI-aware.

If you have already chosen the large icon set and the largest set of toolbars and they are still to small, you're out of luck, I'm afraid. I run 3840 pixels on 28", if you have to run 3200 pixels on only 15" that's quite a lot of pixels per inch...

Interesting that the standard Windows controls seem not to work properly in some cases, e.g. the check list box used in the Relations dialog or the drop-down control in the value filter. The too small pause window text I have already fixed for the next release, that was on my to-do list anyway.

Let me know if you find something else. Your monitor and settings seems to be very different from what I can try with real 4K monitors. I can zoom my system only up to 200%, more does Windows not allow and this means 192 DPI or something.

[AnaDia]

I'm running 3200x1800 pixel on an 13,3" display (laptop for travelling). I can see the problem with the sort menu, when I change the font ratio to a value >200%.
So maybe you will try to set the windows system font ration to 200% and use the LARGE settings in IMatch. This gives a very usable result for me.

[Mario]

I cannot see this glitch here on my PC, using a font-scaling of up to 200%.
I need more details about the screen settings of the OP.
This is a control created by the UI toolkit I use in IMatch. They use the system icon font height as the basis to measure the items in the drop-down control, and this font size is supposed to work. If I get more details from the OP, I will look again into this.

[kiwilink]

Mario

Thanks for the reply. I checked the DPI from the main screen on the desktop and it says 250%.

Let me know if I can check anything else for you

Mike

[Mario]

250% equals 240 DPI. Compared to a standard monitor with 96 DPI this is insanely high. I wonder if it is wise to squeeze such high-res panels in a small notebook just for the reason to make images 'look better'. If you need to scale the fonts by 250% to make them readable...

Lets hope the UI toolkit vendor gets this solved in one of their next releases, I cannot fix this drop-down control. My code in IMatch scales well and if the toolkit vendor gets their act together in the next update - happy days.

[kiwilink]

Mario and AnnDia:

Thanks for your responses.  I did more testing yesterday and if I set the DPI to 150% then everything shows up including the "Welcome to Imatch" on the introductory screen.  The drop down menu on "Edit/Preferences/File Relations" where it shows the 5 choices that include the Buddy files on the left are also visible with no "crunching".  Unfortunately, at 150% the text and font is so small its almost unusable because you have to be so precise with the mouse and glasses are a must.  I decided to set the DPI back to the default (which is 250%).

AnnDia, may I ask if you have a Dell XPS 13?  I'm curious because you have the same high resolution as I do and I'm wondering if my XPS 15 is reacting differently from a XPS 13.  I know the Yoga also has a high res.

Mario, if you were buying a new laptop for IMATCH and Photoshop would you choose one of these new high res laptops?

Mike

[AnaDia]

Mike,

no it's a Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus. Maybe one and a half year ago I was searching for a lightweight 13" laptop with a not too small SSD disk,  "enough" memory and minimum 2 USB 3.0 connections. At that time I end up with the ATIV Book being prepared, that there could be applications which have trouble with that resolution. I would be happier with a matt display and FullHD would have been enough resolution. But I like the ATIV Book and if there are too much problems with that 3200x1800 resolution I can go back to FullHD without quality lost.
So everything is fine for me.

AnaDia