wxPython and retina screens

wxPython Users
1

Hi all,
     I was just wondering how wxPython is affected, if at all, by retina screens. Given that the so-called retina screens have a higher resolution than standard screens, how does that affect wxPython apps that use pos and size? Does this mess things up or does wxPython have a way of dealing with size in a measure that is not bound to pixel size?
Thanks,
- Naz.

2

    I was just wondering how wxPython is affected, if at all, by retina
screens. Given that the so-called retina screens have a higher resolution
than standard screens, how does that affect wxPython apps that use pos and
size? Does this mess things up or does wxPython have a way of dealing with
size in a measure that is not bound to pixel size?

This is an issue in all sorts of places -- and Windows itself is
pretty bad in this regard (Not sure about GTK). While "retina display"
is apparently an Apple trademark, in general, everyone is goign to
higher resolution screens.

Ideally, you would never use pixel coordinates for anything, but we've
been living with a long history of mixing pixel and other coordinate
systems.

For position and size, you really should be using Sizers anyway, so
you should be OK (however, the space around sizer items is defined in
pixels (sigh), so it won't be perfect. Using SizedControls
(http://wiki.wxpython.org/SizedControls) should help -- they are
designe dto be sized and spaced out correctly.

What I'm not sure of is if Apple (or GTK, or Windows) has provided a
"virtual" pixel for high-resolution screens -- so that an old-style
app could specify a four pixel border, but it would actually get
translated to 8 pixels (or whatever), as an awful lot of old apps
assume a ppi or 72-100 or so.

I'd say try it and see!

-Chris

···

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 4:28 AM, Mr Naz <lists@mrnaz.com> wrote:

Thanks,
- Naz.

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3

Chris Barker - NOAA Federal wrote:

     I was just wondering how wxPython is affected, if at all, by retina
screens. Given that the so-called retina screens have a higher resolution
than standard screens, how does that affect wxPython apps that use pos and
size? Does this mess things up or does wxPython have a way of dealing with
size in a measure that is not bound to pixel size?

This is an issue in all sorts of places -- and Windows itself is
pretty bad in this regard (Not sure about GTK). While "retina display"
is apparently an Apple trademark, in general, everyone is goign to
higher resolution screens.

Ideally, you would never use pixel coordinates for anything, but we've
been living with a long history of mixing pixel and other coordinate
systems.

For position and size, you really should be using Sizers anyway, so
you should be OK (however, the space around sizer items is defined in
pixels (sigh), so it won't be perfect. Using SizedControls
(http://wiki.wxpython.org/SizedControls) should help -- they are
designe dto be sized and spaced out correctly.

What I'm not sure of is if Apple (or GTK, or Windows) has provided a
"virtual" pixel for high-resolution screens -- so that an old-style
app could specify a four pixel border, but it would actually get
translated to 8 pixels (or whatever), as an awful lot of old apps
assume a ppi or 72-100 or so.

I haven't seen it yet myself, but my understanding is that things like wxDC will use a compatibility mode that automatically maps from normal to high resolution. Native widgets use the higher resolution version of course, and thanks to the scale mapping mode custom widgets can work okay too, however next to native widgets you can tell the difference in how they look. There has been a bit of discussion about how to provide a hi-rez mode for DC's but I don't think anything has been decided or implemented yet.

···

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 4:28 AM, Mr Naz<lists@mrnaz.com> wrote:

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman

4

Mr Naz wrote:

     I was just wondering how wxPython is affected, if at all, by retina
screens. Given that the so-called retina screens have a higher
resolution than standard screens, how does that affect wxPython apps
that use pos and size? Does this mess things up or does wxPython have a
way of dealing with size in a measure that is not bound to pixel size?

There's really nothing new about this. If you have an application that
assumes a 1024x768 screen, your app is going to look silly on a
1920x1080 laptop, and there have been plenty of those on the market for
a while (and, in fact, many apps DO look silly on such a display). The
retina displays just extends that to 2560x1600.

It's up to you to decide how to handle it. If people drag your window
to be larger, do you respond by adding white space? Do you resize your
controls proportionally? The facilities to handle this have always been
present.

···

--
Tim Roberts, timr@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

5

You simply use sizers that is what they do!

···

On 30/05/13 03:47, Naz Gassiep wrote:

    It's up to

you to decide how to handle it. If people drag your window

    to be larger, do you respond by adding white space?  Do you

resize your

    controls proportionally?  The facilities to handle this have

always been

    present.

    How would you resize controls proportionally? Would you,

forex, size your buttons, text boxes and fonts in proportion to
the size of the frame? Specify each UI component as a % of the
frame size and then each widget as a % of that?

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6

I wouldn’t as I think that is a waste of space.
With “sizer” based layouts you would use the “proportion” parameter,
so controls which don’t need to grow (Buttons, StaticText …) you
use “0” and others (ListCtrls, TextCtrls, Grids …) you use a
value higher then “0” and then you also need to decide if a control
only grows vertically, horizontally or both.
Then widgets such as “wx.lib.agw.aui” give the user a lot of freedom
how to use the screen space, and combined with “wx.lib.agw.persist”
this can be saved and reused on next load. Werner

···

On 30/05/2013 04:47, Naz Gassiep wrote:

    It's up to

you to decide how to handle it. If people drag your window

    to be larger, do you respond by adding white space?  Do you

resize your

    controls proportionally?  The facilities to handle this have

always been

    present.

    How would you resize controls proportionally? Would you,

forex, size your buttons, text boxes and fonts in proportion to
the size of the frame?

    Specify each UI component as a % of the frame size and then

each widget as a % of that?

http://wiki.wxpython.org/UsingSizers