XIDE high DPI support

[mindfulvector]

I would like to request that XIDE gain high DPI support. I've recently gotten WFH status and when I use XIDE with my own high-resolution monitor at home, and have Windows scaling set to 150%, the text within XIDE is quite blurry. You may be able to see the difference in font-rendering sharpness in the title bar of this screenshot vs. the text rendered in the menu, tree view, and source code editor:



It may be possible to override the scaling with a manifest file, though I haven't been able to do this successfully.

Furthermore, injecting the needed code via plugin may be difficult depending on the exact lifecycle of plugins: if they only can respond to events after the UI has been shown, then I believe they would not be able to modify the application's configuration to enable High DPI rendering. Not to mention what layout issues might be present even if this were possible to accomplish.

Therefore, native support for High DPI monitors in XIDE would be greatly appreciated.

[Chris]

Hi Isaac,

I am also using 175% scaling on my machine and had not noticed the problem, but I can't notice it in your screenshot either, so probably this is because you have much better eye vision than mine

If you create an application yourself in X#, with similar controls that XIDE is using, does it also look blurry to you? If yes, and you can find a way to make it look better, please tell me how you do it and I will of course include this in the code of XIDE, too. Without this, it will be difficult for me to improve it, as I cannot "see" the visual problem.

Btw, I read in another thread that you are working on a XIDE plugin, surprised to hear that you are developing it without some help to get started! Please keep in mind that the plugin system is evolving based on requests from people writing the plugins, so if you need more functionality/improvements in it to develop your plugin, please let me know!

[mindfulvector]

Ah, that's a great idea, I will see if I can get the right bits flipped in one of my own apps.

I think maybe the difference in text rendering may not be obvious, depending on the monitor the image is viewed on. For example, if I zoom out the image I shared, the title bar becomes blurry while the rest of the text is easy to read. This is about what I'd expect for DPI type issues, and I agree that it is not super easy to see even in ideal conditions. It didn't bother me until recently, as another example of how fiddly it is.

I will be sure to let you know if I run into issues with the plugin API! I was able to make a basic Todo list fairly easily, prior to this one.

[robert]

Chris,
I was having some problems with my eyes last week and had to work with my multi focal glasses.
I found the fonts in XIDE difficult to read.
Can you add an option to change the fonts of the menu, project window etc?
That would be really nice.
It would be enough to be able to increase/decrease them with a menu option.
There is an extension for VS that does that:

In VS the environment font is the font of the Menu, Solution Explorer, Most windows etc.

See https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/it ... FontSizer2

Robert

[mindfulvector]

Hey Chris,
This seems like the best article I can find on the topic of high DPI support: https://building.enlyze.com/posts/writi ... 20-part-3/

However, I'm having a really hard time figuring out exactly how to get a custom app.manifest file to be used for a build in XIDE. Do you know how that can be accomplished? I did find references to doing this in the various help files for X#, so I know it's possible but I can't find a specific working example so far.

Would it be possible to add an option to the application properties dialog to specify a manifest file? There is already a "suppress default manifest" option.

[wriedmann]

Hi Isaac,
a manifest can be built very easily.
It is described here:
https://docs.xsharp.it/doku.php?id=com_module_sample
in the middle of the page - search for "manifest".
Wolfgang

[mindfulvector]

Wolfgang,

Thank you very much! That got me on the right track, and I now have a manifest enabling high DPI support. Now comes the rest of the article where one needs to implement a response to the DPI change message and where I'll need to implement scaling for the controls and fonts in my app.

I will provide a complete example once I figure out the details so others can learn and so we can hopefully have this in XIDE eventually!

-Isaac

[wriedmann]

Hi Isaac,
Manifests are a really important thing these days... specially if you are using COM in side-by-side mode as I do (I have several VO applications that are using X# COM modules for very important features).
The good thing is that I can use these modules in the migrated version of the applications directly, without COM.
Wolfgang

[mindfulvector]

Here is a mostly working example!

https://cloud.disroot.org/s/jqcR9pScApricC7

On a standard DPI monitor, set to 100%:


On a high DPI monitor set to 150%:

[Chris]

Hi Isaac,

Sorry for the delay, and thanks a lot, this looks very interesting indeed! But can you please post also the .rc file separately? I think you did not check the option "Include resource files" when exporting the app, so it wasn't included in the .xiaef export file.