wrote:
On Sep 13, 2012, at 12:39 AM, Jean-Denis MUYS < email@hidden> wrote:
That's probably the main point: neither Mac OS X, nor iOS are resolution independent. They now support the first step toward supporting any resolution: they support *two* resolutions (in the sense you explain): @1x and @2x.
That’s not true. One of the scale settings on the Retina MBP is 2x, but the others aren’t (they’re non-integer scales). The UI code is genuinely resolution-independent.
—Jens
Hi Jens,
This shows how confusing the whole thing can be. I was talking about the way the Mac behaves from the user perspective, not about what the API exposes nor about what the system software is capable of.
At this point in time, without developer tools, my mother (who is 75 yo and loves to play sudokus) can change the screen "Resolution" (exact word used by the Display preference panel, though I could perhaps argue that word might be improper) to a number
of different choices:
- on her iMac running Mountain Lion, the menu bar size varies because it keeps the same number of logical "picture elements". Similarly, 12-point text can be big or small depending on the size of those logical "picture elements". Therefore, Mountain Lion
on her iMac is not resolution-independent *at all* - in the sense talked about by the post I was answering.
- on her MacBook Pro Retina, the UI is different, but the result is the same: 5 choices, no resolution independence at all. The UI even labels one end of the 5-step spectrum "larger text". This clearly shows that Mountain Lion is not resolution independent
because same point-size text doesn't stay the same [approximate] size on the screen. Now it turns out she installed a small third party utility (RDM) that exposes many other choices for that "Resolution". Two such choices are for example labelled "1680x1050
(HiDPI)" which uses 3360x2100 pixels and "1680x1050". When she switches between those two, the screen elements stay the size (though look much better in one of the 2 choices).
The way RDM chose to call those 2 choices not withstanding, the OS behaves resolution-independly between those logical resolutions: 3360x2100 @2x and 1680x1050 @1x. But it stops being resolution-independent (again as far as my mother can see) among the
HiDPI choices, and on the other hand, among the "normal" choices.
So despite what the software is capable of, Apple chose to expose only the traditional resolution dependent behavior, with the exception of the HiDPI vs normal "Definitions" (and yet again, only with 3rd-party utilities) which the very 1st step towards
full user-level resolution independence.
To complete my point, I'd argue that Apple made the right choice: full user-level resolution independence might make sense to adapt to different *physical* resolutions (different hardware screens), but not for offering a user choice on a single given hardware
screen (because there is no point in voluntarily selecting a display mode which differs only by being lower quality). So going back to the OP question, switching resolution on a MacBook Pro retina should not alter the pixel-size of a given UI element.
I hope I made myself clearer without getting too verbose or pedantic.
Regards,
Jean-Denis
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