Russell Shaw wrote:
... Doesn't that mean that any assumptions about font and window sizes by X apps is all wrong? Instead of 1pt being 1/72", it's more like 1/60",
Actually, 1 point is always 1/72". (That's the definition of a point.)
That's what i mean. If you measure 1pt with a ruler against the screen, you should see 1/72" regardless of whether the monitor is set to 640x480 or 1024x768. Resolution should only have the effect of making diagonal lines and curves less smoother. With 100dpi on my system, 1/72" ends up being physically 1/60".
But you are absolutely correct that many assumptions about displayed font sizes are wrong.
... It also means that
changing the resolution from 800x600 to 1024x768 changes the *physical*
screen size,
Do you mean the screen size of a font (the size of a font on the screen), or the screen size (the size of the screen)?
It will cause the physical size (what you measure with a ruler) of fonts and windows to change. The physical dimensions of your monitor as reported by xdpyinfo will also be wrong.
making all the fonts and everything else change size when they should be constant.
Which sizes do you think should be constant?
If I increase my screen resolution (number of pixels), it's usually because I want more information on my screen, so (usually) everything should stay the same size in pixels but shrink in physical size on the screen.
No. That's broken microsoft behaviour. Increasing the resolution should only make angled lines and curves smoother. If you want everything on the desktop like menus and icons to be a different size, there should be a setting in the window manager, or you could use startx -- -dpi 100 to change everything including the font sizes.
(Of course, there are other cases too. One might increase screen resolution to display something more smoothly but still want physical sizes of everything to stay the same.)
I think the problem is that we don't distinguish between the specified printing size of text and the currently displayed size of text. (Actually, that second part is "the size on the display of the screen font currently used to display text with the specified printing size.")
By specifying DisplaySize in XF86Config-4, fonts should all *look* the same size on different sized monitors. However, because gui toolkits specify most things in pixels, then windows and menus should change size with the size of the monitor.
To me, a "10-point font" is one that prints on paper with a size of 10 points (if no further scaling is done when printing). Obviously, text set to print at 10 points can appear at any size on the screen.
It makes sense to talk about a "10-point screen font" only when it's calibrated for the screen resolution in pixels and for the physical screen size.
I read somewhere (when doing M$ programming) that the physical size displayed for a font on the screen is bigger than the same font on a printer, to compensate that monitors are usually read further away. This would be acceptable.
Regarding assumptions' being wrong, one major peeve is MS Outlook and
its users. When the default "12-point" font size looks too big on their
screens, they think that it's appropriate to set the font size to "10
points." That causes Outlook to send HTML mail with an HTML font size of
2. My browser/mailer is adjusted to display normal-sized text (size=3)
at a comfortable screen size. Of course, when I get the Outlook-
originated mail with a reduced HTML font size, it displays uncomfortably
small on my screen. ...all because Bill Gates and company don't provide
a way to display message text in a smaller screen font on the local machine without screwing with the HTML font size.
I see some mail like that in mozilla, but i have it set so that when i hit reply, the message is converted to plain ascii which is easier to read.
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