WYSIWYG? or Print? (like in the 72dpi monitor times)

Classic Servoy
1

There used to be, on Mac at least, a standard for monitors: 72dpi.

For those who are lost:
take the horizontal resolution of your screen
measure the width of your screen in inches (1inch=25.4mm)
divide them.
eg.: 1280 dots / 13.6 " = 94dpi (17" diagonal 4:3 screen)
800 dots / 11.2 " = 72dpi (14" diagonal 4:3 screen)
Yeah, old days… 14"monitor with 800x600 resolution.

But, Servoy Form Designer still uses this standard.
So, if you use a 17"monitor with 1280x1024 resolution and you place a field or label using a 12pt font,

  1. you see it on your screen as a 9pt
  2. if you print it, you get a 12pt

Issues:

  1. you want to print as you see it on the screen:
  • don’t care about the 12pt as long as it is ok on the screen
  • set in the form-properties the paperPrintScale to (94dpi*100)/72dpi = 130
    Help? What if my client has a 19" 1280x1024 …
    Make a seperate form fore this monitor ?! :(
  1. you want to print a field with font 9pt as a font 9pt
  • you will see on the screen a 6.5pt :(
  1. you want a font 9pt on the screen as a 9pt and print it as a 9pt
  • ???

Any tricks on these issues?
Is Eclipse able to solve these issues?

Koen

2

I do not understand what you mean exactly, I think…

For example, if I create a small HTML test page that has 12 pt font size specified in the CSS for labels, I show it inside a browser (I used IE) - then change the resoultion, the real size of the text (measured with a ruler on top of the screen :) ) shown on-screen changes. (even though the font size is still 12 pt)…

What do you mean by “you want to print as you see it on the screen”, because on the screen you see it differently depending on the resolution used by the user. Should the printing differ based on the resolution/screen size of the user?

Maybe I do not get the idea yet… or I do get it, but no one else makes font sizes look the same no matter the resolution/monitor when they are specified in pt either :?

3

mmm…
You made some points.

  1. the user can change the resolution of the screen…
    I assumed that the user uses the native resolution of the screen…

  2. If you place in Servoy a label
    and you change his style to:

label
{
	font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
	font-weight: normal;
	font-size: 72pt;
	color: #666666;
    text-align: left;
}

and you place a rectangle of 72x72pixels,
you get the same heigth for both “objects”,
if you print them the heigth is 1", which is the correct heigth!
And if you look at the ruler in the Servoy-Designer, it tells you 72p=1"

Though if you measure the heigth on the screen, it is not 1".
Like Andrei mentioned, it depends on the users working screen resolution.

So what is my issue:
If i print normal text, i prefer to use a 9pt,
but if i use a 9pt in a solution, i can barely read it on my screen (MacBook)
So i would like to introduce a zoom-factor, so every user can set his zoom-factor
depending on his native/actual working screen resolution or the quality of his eyes
and i can deliver WYSIWYG forms based on a correct dots-per-inch proportion,
independed of screen-resolutions.

But i can not find any correction possibilities in the Servoy-Designer… :frowning:
Somebody knows a trick?

Is Eclipse giving this possibility?

Koen

4

for printing you can use the printScale function! (found in the properties!)

set it to 80%, 90% or whatever you like.

5

Correct,
it would do the job partially.

But i will have to adapt my forms over time :frowning:
because the screen dots-per-inch resolution will change over time
and text on my forms will look smaller and smaller
and the user will not be able to adapt my solution-resolution to his working screen-resolution.

If you compare it to printer-resolutions:

  • if i print a Verdana 12pt on a 300dpi-laser or on a 2400dpi laser,
    the heigth stays the same (luckily),
  • if i place a Verdana 12pt on a 72dpi screen or on a 126dpi screen,
    it isn’t the same heigth…

So maybe i should introduce a feature request:

  • a screenScale-function (like the the printScale function), like in FM but better :slight_smile:

Koen

6

But what if the user really wants his font to look smaller/larger when he changes the screen resolution?

Maybe the user should be allowed to adjust the screen resolution according to the capabilities of his eyes, as he does with other applications.