Almost certainly in response to the recent release
of the Retina display iPad 3 armed, Microsoft has published the details
of how Windows 8 will cope with a wide range of screen resolutions and
sizes, from 1366 × 768 laptop (112 PPI) cheaper to 2560 × 1440 (291 PPI)
tablets and everything else. Windows will now gracefully with density of 96 PPI pixels above. Unfortunately,
and quite disappointed users Windows dedicated veterans, these
much-needed fixes will be valid only for the Metro and desktop
interface.
Historically, Windows
was absolutely atrocious to handle any display with greater than 96 PPI —
but, until recently, this has not posed much of a problem because
display with a pixel density of 96 PPI as well (Windows default from the
years ' 80) were few and far between. With the
emergence of mobile computers that displays 1920 × 1080 crams in pixels
in 14 inches (157-PPI), and demonstrating that tablets will soon have a
PPI in 2048 × 1536 200s iPad, Microsoft was forced to make some changes.
Without scaling, the physical size of UI elements decrease increases PPI. On the desktop with a mouse and keyboard (and assuming good eyesight), this doesn't matter too much. The story is very different with touchpad (75% of all consumers Windows PCs are laptops) and touchscreen. To
work around this, the operating system must enlarge the interface — an
icon that the 32 pixels wide on a 96 PPI display must be scaled up to 64
pixels (for example) on high density screens. In the picture below you can see the effects of an increase in the PPI without resizing; increased screen resolution, as does the difficulty of hitting a button with your finger.
In
Windows 8, the Metro interface (new apps start up screen and
underground) will have three different levels "zoom": 100%, which is a
11.6-inch 1366 × 768 (112 PPI) display; display of 140%, representing a 1920 × 1080 (190 PPI) 11.6-inch full HD; and 180%, which is a 11.6-inch display 2560 × 1440 (253 PPI) WQHD. Almost
every desktop monitor falls into the category 100% (2560 × 1440 display
27 inches is only 109 PPI), while many laptops and tablets to use zoom
140 and 180%. Blog Post: Windows 8 building does
not mention the Desktop side of things at all, so it seems that it will
be stuck with the current zoom controls, poor.
Windows 8, with zoom scale
As
far as developers are concerned, creating a scalable app is simple: If
you provide vector graphics, Windows 8 will take care of everything for
you; otherwise, just need to provide bitmap images for each of the three levels of zoom. Windows will automatically manage the resizing of interface elements. Of course it helps that Metro is composed almost entirely of rectangles and typography, both of which are easily resized.
Resize icon in WIndows 8
In
fact, Windows 8 will do exactly what iOS has to do when scaling up
original iPhone and iPad apps for the iPhone 4 or iPad 3 with a Retina
display. There is a rather substantial
difference, though: Apple devices, because of fixed proportions and
dimensions of the screen, the image simply needs to be doubled in size
(scaled 200%). This is easy to do and has no risk of causing any graphical anomalies. Windows
8 is not so easy: If you resize an icon of 32 × 32 pixels of 140%, ends
with 44.8 × 44.8 — which then must be rounded upwards or downwards for
44 and 45. It's the same story for 180%.
Windows Task Manager 8: a little fiddly to PPI touch high?It
might not be very obvious with the icons, but with a more intricate
layout and especially websites defined with CSS, a difference of 1 or 2
pixels can make a big difference: no lines in the right place,
navigation bars and text wraps incorrectly, and so on. Also
one of the simplest (and most common), line 1 pixels, would have been
forced into an existential crisis: does remain, get 1 pixels scaled up
to 2, or straddle the fence and become blurry and anti-aliased?
As for where this leaves the side Windows Desktop 8, we're not sure. What Office or Photoshop will be like on a 2560 × 1440 laptop, without correct interface resizing? Microsoft has made a lot of noise on the Ribbon UI to takeover Explorer 8, Windows, but that will be usable at 300 PPI? The new version of Task Manager (pictured above) — can you imagine trying to click on those panels on a small
