High DPI display support in future versions [#11014]

[ABramley]

Hi all,

I've been a contented user of mediamonkey for some time now. Recently I swapped my old computer for a MBP running Windows 8 pretty much exclusively. With a res of 2880x1800 and windows' scaling being heavily used I was prepared for some programs not designed for this setup not to look amazing, and sure enough MM still does the job without being much of a looker. As I'm in such a minority here, I wouldn't imagine that any update is a priority.

Now though there's a new raft of windows laptops being released with similar or greater resolutions at equal screensizes, and the upcoming 8.1 release has a few modifications to support high DPI displays. I'm also seeing other programs I use a lot starting to update to become DPI aware - the latest firefox version for example is a huge step forwards.

I just thought I'd see if there was any news as to whether this feature was in the pipeline for an upcoming release?

Cheers all!

[Lowlander]

http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=11014

[ABramley]

Looks good!

I've found a couple of docs that may help regarding developing for high DPI and also different DPIs (e.g. a Macbook Pro with built-in screen at one DPI connected to an external monitor at a seperate DPI - exactly how I use my setup), which you may well already be aware of but I found interesting nevertheless:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=307061 (excellent reading for anyone interested in this)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/apps/bg184615 (less in-depth)

I look forward to seeing what happens - keep up the good work!

[ABramley]

Also I've attached some screenshots of the various ways programs can work or not work with a high DPI display:

Outlook 2013 - seems to be designed for high DPI displays, looks mostly great, a couple of icons not high enough res:

http://www.jaggerbramley.com/userupload ... utlook.jpg

Abby fine reader - quite old software, but still looks really good with a high DPI display:

http://www.jaggerbramley.com/userupload ... i/abby.jpg

Firefox - again, I'd argue it could do with a bit of graphical sprucing, but mostly really good since the latest update:

http://www.jaggerbramley.com/userupload ... irefox.jpg

Photoshop CS 4- everything still looks really crisp, but it's all gone really small due to the high DPI display:

http://www.jaggerbramley.com/userupload ... toshop.jpg

Mediamonkey - everything is large enough, but the quality is lacking as images are stretched and neither text nor gfx are sharp anymore:

http://www.jaggerbramley.com/userupload ... monkey.jpg

Let me know if you'd like more info or someone to test changes!

[dcormier]

It would be nice to see this issue addressed. It's not too bad (certainly when compared to other apps), but there are some issues. Among them is that the icon in the task bar is pretty unattractive.

[ABramley]

Just an update and a bump for this - as of Windows 10 it's a lot better and icon sizes at least display correctly. It appears that Windows 10 is very gentle on a lot of older apps that weren't designed with DPI awareness in mind.

A re-design would still hugely improve things though, and, dare I say it, it's not a scratch on the album browser in itunes in OSX on a rMBP...

[jiri]

This is planned to work much better in MM5.

Jiri

[Pathduck]

This is planned to work much better in MM5.

Jiri

That's great to hear. I have recently changed to a higher resolution when using MM on my TV and in 1080p the player is really small to the point of it being impossible to use. I use the Delletronic skin but there really are very few skins with large enough players and I also like the look of...

I would be very interested in how high DPI scaling would work for the player/miniplayer in regards to skinning. I assume MM4 skins would no longer work in MM5?

[mikolajek]

Yes, that's a pain... I'm also using 4K display and took some time to edit my preferred skin to increase font sizes, otherwise I would have changed the player as MM is "default shape" is simply unusable in large DPI environment...

Any information when can we expect MM5 with this issue fixed / improved?

[Pathduck]

Even in 1080p the player is too small to use on my TV, and in 4K I imagine it would be impossible to see...

Mikolajek; Which skin are you using?
Would you be able to make a copy of your msz or mmip file and upload it so I can try it and see if it helps me?

[glowinghamster45]

Giving this thread a healthy bump.

I'm running MM on my Surface Pro 4, and it can definitely be a little hard to use at times. Most of the text ends up working alright, but everything down in the seek bar/album art/lyric section is pretty awful. If anyone has a skin workaround, I'd very much like to hear it.

Also, any chance we could get an update on MM5.....?

[zombiefly]

personally speaking, i really wish you'd move away from this ancient winamp framework. we've lived with it for so long but it's now really pushing it. Most people i recommend MM to love the feature set but refuse to use it as it "looks like windows xp". Are you planning on replacing the UI framework in mm5 or further tweaks to the creaking winamp artifact?

[p1r4cy]

personally speaking, i really wish you'd move away from this ancient winamp framework. we've lived with it for so long but it's now really pushing it. Most people i recommend MM to love the feature set but refuse to use it as it "looks like windows xp". Are you planning on replacing the UI framework in mm5 or further tweaks to the creaking winamp artifact?

Sorry for the newbie question, but MM is based on Winamp? Man, I love MM, but I wish the devs would take some time to just fix the clunky interface and polish it.

[MMFrLife]

I'm not sure what they are basing the framework in MM5 on, but from what has been indicated by development, it is supposed to be very different.

btw, it's "PPI" (pixels per inch), which refers to appearance/size of things on the screen not "DPI" (dots per inch), which refers to their printed
appearance/size.

[Tebasaki]

Yeah. Purchased a lifetime license. Love MM. Got a 4k screen. Can't use MM. This is driving me crazy.