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Thread Delphi & Display Settings
Fri, Jan 27 2006 9:57 AMPermanent Link

Sean McCall
Hi,

A conversation in another thread & an attempt to move to
D2006 has made me decide to change the screen settings I
design in.

Up until now, I have always designed in 640x480, normal
fonts, TForm.Scaled = True, TForm.PixelsPerInch = 96. My
monitor is a 17" LCD display. I have done this to make sure
the program runs correctly on a 640x480 display.

First, I think that I will now target a minimum display of
800x600 since nobody seems to use 640x480 anymore and this
will give me a little more screen real estate to play with.

It has been suggested to design at 1600x1200 so that all the
parts of the IDE are useable. If anyone is doing this, what
are fonts are you using, what size monitor do you have, and
what settings are you making on your Delphi TForms to ensure
that the designed screen scales properly on diferent display
settings. If I set my current display to this resolution,
I'd need a screen magnifier (like in Terry Gilliam's Brazil)
to read anything.

If anyone else has a different form design strategy, I'd
appreciate hearing about it.

Take it easy,

Sean
Fri, Jan 27 2006 11:52 AMPermanent Link

Schoeneck (Nick) Howell
Sean McCall <NoSpam@nowhere.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
If anyone else has a different form design strategy, I'd
appreciate hearing about it.
<SNIP>


Sean,

I've found the multiple monitor approach works very well for me.  

You get the additional real estate without having to deal with tiny fonts.
An added benefit is that you can easily change resolutions on the secondary
monitor to see how your app looks without affecting the usability of your
primary monitor.  I've been using a 1280x1024 LCD as my primary &
a high res CRT as my secondary (good for up to 1600x1200 ... but usually
left at 1280x1024).

I  especially like this arrangement when debugging.  The app is on the
secondary monitor & the IDE debug layout is on the primary.

Nick
Sun, Jan 29 2006 12:00 AMPermanent Link

"Clive"
I use 1792x1344 on a 19inch, I always design apps so screens etc can be
resixed to suit the end user and dont generally lock down a screen apart
from some dialogs. Then I usually test it on 800x600 as a minimum.

As for fonts, 10 pts at design time is still 10 points no matter what res
the end user has selected and would be scaled accordingly, I have not come
accross problems before and my apps run on anything from 800x600 -> 1792x344

Cheers
Clive.

"Sean McCall" <NoSpam@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:0B227856-B753-42CE-A26C-57679EFBF192@news.elevatesoft.com...
> Hi,
>
> A conversation in another thread & an attempt to move to D2006 has made me
> decide to change the screen settings I design in.
>
> Up until now, I have always designed in 640x480, normal fonts,
> TForm.Scaled = True, TForm.PixelsPerInch = 96. My monitor is a 17" LCD
> display. I have done this to make sure the program runs correctly on a
> 640x480 display.
>
> First, I think that I will now target a minimum display of 800x600 since
> nobody seems to use 640x480 anymore and this will give me a little more
> screen real estate to play with.
>
> It has been suggested to design at 1600x1200 so that all the parts of the
> IDE are useable. If anyone is doing this, what are fonts are you using,
> what size monitor do you have, and what settings are you making on your
> Delphi TForms to ensure that the designed screen scales properly on
> diferent display settings. If I set my current display to this resolution,
> I'd need a screen magnifier (like in Terry Gilliam's Brazil) to read
> anything.
>
> If anyone else has a different form design strategy, I'd appreciate
> hearing about it.
>
> Take it easy,
>
> Sean

Sun, Jan 29 2006 1:04 PMPermanent Link

Jon Lloyd Duerdoth
Sean,

As I Clive said....

The only thing I did extra was to detect if the user was less than 800
by 600 because I found that I needed to up the font size because scaling
seemed to make it unreadable.  In actual fact, I've not found anyone
using less than 800 by 600 anymore.

I did find that some items didn't scale properly (mainly Turbo Power)
In the FormShow , I just forced those items to match some other item
that was scaling properly.

Jon

Clive wrote:
> I use 1792x1344 on a 19inch, I always design apps so screens etc can be
> resixed to suit the end user and dont generally lock down a screen apart
> from some dialogs. Then I usually test it on 800x600 as a minimum.
>
> As for fonts, 10 pts at design time is still 10 points no matter what res
> the end user has selected and would be scaled accordingly, I have not come
> accross problems before and my apps run on anything from 800x600 -> 1792x344
>
> Cheers
> Clive.
>
> "Sean McCall" <NoSpam@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:0B227856-B753-42CE-A26C-57679EFBF192@news.elevatesoft.com...
>> Hi,
>>
>> A conversation in another thread & an attempt to move to D2006 has made me
>> decide to change the screen settings I design in.
>>
>> Up until now, I have always designed in 640x480, normal fonts,
>> TForm.Scaled = True, TForm.PixelsPerInch = 96. My monitor is a 17" LCD
>> display. I have done this to make sure the program runs correctly on a
>> 640x480 display.
>>
>> First, I think that I will now target a minimum display of 800x600 since
>> nobody seems to use 640x480 anymore and this will give me a little more
>> screen real estate to play with.
>>
>> It has been suggested to design at 1600x1200 so that all the parts of the
>> IDE are useable. If anyone is doing this, what are fonts are you using,
>> what size monitor do you have, and what settings are you making on your
>> Delphi TForms to ensure that the designed screen scales properly on
>> diferent display settings. If I set my current display to this resolution,
>> I'd need a screen magnifier (like in Terry Gilliam's Brazil) to read
>> anything.
>>
>> If anyone else has a different form design strategy, I'd appreciate
>> hearing about it.
>>
>> Take it easy,
>>
>> Sean
>
>
Tue, Jan 31 2006 11:56 AMPermanent Link

> The app is on the
> secondary monitor & the IDE debug layout is on the primary.

I use it the other way round, but I can't believe how good having two
screens is. I'm sure it must be better than one big one. My second screen
is used for either the app under debug (which stops screen updates
happening), or VMWare machines, or Radmin connections "full screen". It is
almost like having two computers because it feels like a separate screen,
but it is of course all on one so easy to handle.

/Matthew Jones/
Tue, Jan 31 2006 6:55 PMPermanent Link

Jon Lloyd Duerdoth
Matthew,

Your enthusiasm for 2 screens makes me think about adding another
screen to my setup... I already the video card so I guess I'll
give it a try.

Jon

matthew@matthewdelme-jones.delme.com (Matthew Jones) wrote:
>> The app is on the
>> secondary monitor & the IDE debug layout is on the primary.
>
> I use it the other way round, but I can't believe how good having two
> screens is. I'm sure it must be better than one big one. My second screen
> is used for either the app under debug (which stops screen updates
> happening), or VMWare machines, or Radmin connections "full screen". It is
> almost like having two computers because it feels like a separate screen,
> but it is of course all on one so easy to handle.
>
> /Matthew Jones/
Image