How does image scaling work in Windows Phone 8.1 - xaml

I'm trying to work out how best to use the new scaling feature in Windows Phone Universal Apps
I have an image in SVG format and I've created several different versions
test.scale-100.png (100x100 pixels)
test.scale-240.png (240x240 pixels)
More to come
I then have the following XAML ,this renders the image way too large on a 240% scale device
<Image Source="...." />
If I use this (explicitly setting the size) it renders as I expect
<Image Width="100" Height="100" Source="...." />
In this case am I actually getting the benefit of the higher resolution image? It certainly looks better subjectively.
Is the difference that XAML Pixels are talking about a different thing to the actual pixels in the image? i.e. XAML pixels are logical rather than physical if that makes sense?

I think you can find the information that you need here.
Basically, what you said is correct: XAML pixels are logical. On different devices they are scaled differently, so that you always have 480 pixels wide. So if you set an image's width to be 100 pixels, on some devices it will be much more physical pixels (say 180). So, if you have an image that's 180 pixels wide it will look perfect.

Related

Blur UI on High DPI windows system

wxWidgets 3.1 claims to fix the Windows High DPI issues. It works too but I see blur UI (fonts/bitmaps) looks stretched.
I went through the https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/hidpi/high-dpi-desktop-application-development-on-windows
I did the manifest changes to make my application DPI-aware, it removed the blur effect but application layout went wrong, every layout looks smaller (unusable UI).
Note* issue more vigilant on 3K and 4K system. Hardcoded pixel sizes are not scaling (like 400px width button, 500pixel width panel etc).
wxWidgets gives you a (relatively simple) way to make your application work in high DPI, but doesn't -- and can't -- do it automatically for you, in particular only sizer-based layouts without hardcoded pixel sizes will work correctly and you do need to provide your own higher definition artwork.
Concerning the existing pixel values, the simplest (even though not really the best) way to make them work better is to put FromDIP() calls around them.
Also note that you don't need to do anything special for pixel values in XRC, they're already interpreted as being resolution-independent pixels and are scaled according to the DPI automatically.

React native, how can i set font Size in pixels?

How can i set font Size in pixels?
Hello,
Designer send me sizes of app components. Header must be 60 pixels
, but if i put font size 60, it is very big. How can i adjust it for pixels. Thank you. (IOS DEVICE)
You cannot do pixels on mobile. You do DPI. Tell your designer to get with the tech. He's designing for web. While you can figure out how many DPI correlate to how many pixels for the current device (its a device specific thing) with the PixelRatio API - https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/pixelratio.html - it's putting in effort to make your design worse. DPI works great across different screens/sizes.

Windows Phone 8.1 app always scales images

I have converted one of my Windows Store applications to a universal application and added a Windows Phone project to it.
When rendering the graphics (Image and Rectangles with ImageBrushes) the graphics always gets scaled even if I set it to not scale which is not how expect it to work.
Example:
I have an image that is named test.scale-100.png which is 27*27 pixles.
The same image exists as a 32*32 pixel sized image named test.scale-140.png and another named test.scale-240.png which is 59*59 pixles
I use this image in my default layout the following way:
<Image x:Name="imgTest" Source="/Assets/test.png" Stretch="None"/>
When I start my app with the Windows Phone 8.1 WVGA 4 inch emulator the 32*32 image is shown with the correct bounds, but the actual image is scaled (I can see that quite simple because the content gets blurred).
The same happens when I start the app with the Windows Phone 8.1 1080p 6inch emulator; The image is 59*59 pixles but the image is a bit blurred.
How can I force scaling to not be performed?
Thanks in advance for any help!
I am not sure. I am looking for a solution right now too. But I found that scaling is not supported in Windows Phone 8.1. Only Windows Store apps are working with scaling. Take a look at link below.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn263244.aspx
So, the way how to scale images is to use height/width propreties to force size of image or you can use BitmapImage and its property DecodePixelHeight/DecodePixelWidth together with Height/Width properties to decode the image.
Hope it helps ;)
I have the same issue, I think this is an OS bug:
Test 1
test.scale-100.png +
test.scale-140.png +
test.scale-240.png
= Blurry result
Test 2
test.scale-240.png
= Blurry result, again
Test 3
test.scale-240.png renamed to test.png
= Sharp result!
The problem occurs only with certain assets, not all. In my case only in some DataTemplates. I think that in some situations the system scale the image incorrectly, with an horrible blurry result. If you leave only the "scale-240" image, it is blurry. If you rename it removing "scale-240", it becomes sharp!
In summary, name the image as test.png and stop.
As MSDN says:
Don't use images that aren't sized to multiples of 5px. Units that aren't multiples of 5px can experience pixel shifting when scaled to 140%, 180%, and 240%.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/hh465362.aspx
Your Width="53" Height="53" could be the issue of incorrect behavior

Are preferred font sizes in Windows8 going to require a calculator?

While looking at some official Windows8/"Metro" material, I see this line of xaml:
<TextBlock Text="Contoso Cookbook" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontWeight="SemiLight" FontSize="26.667" />
What?!? A font size of 26.667? I realize this is 2/3rds of 40, and 5/6ths of 32, so maybe there's some conversion thing happening there, but is this going to be the preferred way of setting font sizes, and if so, what are the guidelines for coming up with these seemingly random sizes?
There are pre-defined Windows 8 styles, located in your project in Common\StandardStyles.xaml. Take those as the standard.
The size you are talking about belongs to SubheaderTextStyle.
Here is why you get the "weird" size. If you look at the typography guidelines, you see the values in points. However, in XAML you specify the font size in pixels. Sample to go with: 96 PPI (pixel-per-inch) display. In 1 inch, you get 72 points. Doing simple math:
96 pixels per inch / 72 points per inch = 1.(3) pixels/point
So, 26.667 / 1.(3) ~ 20pt
This way, you are getting a consistent font size.

XCode Coordinates for iPad Retina Displays

I just noticed an interesting thing while attempting to update my app for the new iPad Retina display, every coordinate in Interface Builder is still based on the original 1024x768 resolution.
What I mean by this is that if I have a 2048x1536 image to have it fit the entire screen on the display I need to set it's size to 1024x768 and not 2048x1536.
I am just curious is this intentional? Can I switch the coordinate system in Interface Builder to be specific for Retina? It is a little annoying since some of my graphics are not exactly 2x in either width or height from their originals. I can't seem to set 1/2 coordinate numbers such as 1.5 it can either be 1 or 2 inside of Interface Builder.
Should I just do my interface design in code at this point and forget interface builder? Keep my graphics exactly 2x in both directions? Or just live with it?
The interface on iOS is based on points, not pixels. The images HAVE to be 2x the size of the originals.
Points Versus Pixels In iOS there is a distinction between the coordinates you specify in your drawing code and the pixels of the
underlying device. When using native drawing technologies such as
Quartz, UIKit, and Core Animation, you specify coordinate values using
a logical coordinate space, which measures distances in points. This
logical coordinate system is decoupled from the device coordinate
space used by the system frameworks to manage the pixels on the
screen. The system automatically maps points in the logical coordinate
space to pixels in the device coordinate space, but this mapping is
not always one-to-one. This behavior leads to an important fact that
you should always remember:
One point does not necessarily correspond to one pixel on the screen.
The purpose of using points (and the logical coordinate system) is to
provide a consistent size of output that is device independent. The
actual size of a point is irrelevant. The goal of points is to provide
a relatively consistent scale that you can use in your code to specify
the size and position of views and rendered content. How points are
actually mapped to pixels is a detail that is handled by the system
frameworks. For example, on a device with a high-resolution screen, a
line that is one point wide may actually result in a line that is two
pixels wide on the screen. The result is that if you draw the same
content on two similar devices, with only one of them having a
high-resolution screen, the content appears to be about the same size
on both devices.
In your own drawing code, you use points most of the time, but there
are times when you might need to know how points are mapped to pixels.
For example, on a high-resolution screen, you might want to use the
extra pixels to provide extra detail in your content, or you might
simply want to adjust the position or size of content in subtle ways.
In iOS 4 and later, the UIScreen, UIView, UIImage, and CALayer classes
expose a scale factor that tells you the relationship between points
and pixels for that particular object. Before iOS 4, this scale factor
was assumed to be 1.0, but in iOS 4 and later it may be either 1.0 or
2.0, depending on the resolution of the underlying device. In the future, other scale factors may also be possible.
From http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/2DDrawing/Conceptual/DrawingPrintingiOS/GraphicsDrawingOverview/GraphicsDrawingOverview.html
This is intentional on Apple's part, to make your code relatively independent of the actual screen resolution when positioning controls and text. However, as you've noted, it can make displaying graphics at max resolution for the device a bit more complicated.
For iPhone, the screen is always 480 x 320 points. For iPad, it's 1024 x 768. If your graphics are properly scaled for the device, the impact is not difficult to deal with in code. I'm not a graphic designer, and it's proven a bit challenging to me to have to provide multiple sets of icons, launch images, etc. to account for hi-res.
Apple has naming standards for some image types that minimize the impact on your code:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/IconsImages/IconsImages.html
That doesn't help you when you're dealing with custom graphics inline, however.