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Author Topic: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions  (Read 24861 times)

Otis

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UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« on: January 08, 2017, 10:49:46 PM »
Running Winamp on a 4K monitor, the buttons are microscopically tiny.  It's kind of ridiculous.  Even on my laptop that has a 1920x1080 display, I can barely hit the buttons sometimes.


It'd be awesome if the UI would either pick up Windows 10's application scaling settings, or if you could scale it up yourself.  Any chance this kind of feature could be added in the future?

dro

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2017, 02:05:39 AM »
For modern skins you've already got the means to set a scaling (or alternatively pick a different modern skin that works better on such displays).

If you're wanting it for classic skins, if double-sized doesn't help (which is limited in the windows it works for), there is a means to convert a classic skin to a modern skin and then be able to use it's scaling support. However I've got it on my list of things that I want to achieve to attempt to re-implement the classic skin engine so that it can be scaled for all of the windows.

Finally, you can also increase the internal window font sizes (as long as the plug-ins support it) so that those parts can be seen (even if it doesn't help with the outer frames).

-dro

Otis

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2017, 05:12:04 PM »
The skin scaling solves part of the problem, but there are still elements of the UI that don't pic up on it, like tooltips and a few others.  The font scaling between skins and stuff inside your media library seems a little incongruent too, like the letters appear too big for the box they're in, despite being properly sized.  I guess maybe because the margins between the UI and the text within don't scale?


It's not a huge deal and to your point you can address this using tools already in the program, but it would be cool if at some point a facelift could be done on the UI that is more friendly to higher resolution displays.  I think the first time I ever used Winamp back in 1997 or so, I was using an 800x600 monitor.  Funny how far we've come...


All that said, I am sure there are bigger fish to fry in this project but I felt like this was something worth mentioning.

dro

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2017, 05:37:23 PM »
Have you got an example of some of the UI element issues ?

I've only got a 23" FHD screen and other than bumping up the default font a few point sizes I'm not seeing anything that's bad - no more different than scaling in the OS can be like. Though with modern skins there's issues due to the engine not having been updated to support such things (which is tricky to make changes to via this project) or other elements just aren't skinned and so it relies solely on the OS and what settings may have been applied (which makes it a potential mess that way as well).

Tbh the only real way I can see if having it behave correctly is to have a non-skinned native OS UI. That way all of the Win10 related scaling improvements can be leveraged with minimal fuss. Downside of that is you then loose the skinned ui (though existing skins could still be used) and it makes it more like most other players that are still in use, so it's a balancing act of what would work or not.

And I don't think it's a minor thing as I've personally been thinking about such things going back to around 2012 (with minimal changes being able to be done to help enough as part of the final 5.6x releases).

-dro

Juanus

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2017, 06:05:00 PM »
Sorry for making this so basic, I know it is much more complicated than this, but
You have Classic Skins,
You had Modern Skins,
is it possible to make a native OS skin?

dro

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2017, 06:20:54 PM »
The simple answer is yes (though when it comes to implementation its not as simple as it could be but it's do-able).

There's been replacement UIs for Winamp over the years (A0 by Justin is another one - I believe that's the correct name) and as modern skins are basically a plug-in which uses a number of API hooks within the Winamp core (to keep it simple on the implementation) there's nothing that prevents a different class of UI being coded up as another plug-in :)

-dro

Eris Lund

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2017, 06:22:50 PM »
Sorry for making this so basic, I know it is much more complicated than this, but
You have Classic Skins,
You had Modern Skins,
is it possible to make a native OS skin?





 ???
Maker of Plugins, I suppose.
gen_native:
https://github.com/0x5066/gen_native
vis_sdl2:
https://github.com/0x5066/WinampVis
(I know, creative names)

dro

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2017, 06:32:10 PM »
What I mean by a native OS styling is not having to approximate the look of the OS within the confines of what the modern and classic skin engines impose (however good they are as above shows  8) ).

Such a thing would be providing something more like VLC / fb2k in it's style (which I know there are people who despise - with same going the opposite way for anything that uses a skinned UI like Winamp) and so would be able to match the current OS (including any OS theme customisations).

-dro
« Last Edit: January 10, 2017, 06:35:09 PM by dro »

Juanus

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2017, 10:21:27 PM »
I don't know enough about this so some of what I am saying will not make sense so I apologize in advance.
I was thinking that there would be a native OS skin that would take on the properties of the OS. That might not even be possible. That way the shape of the buttons would be consistent with the OS and colors and scroll bars. Things like that.
Like I said, this is probably not possible,

dro

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Re: UI Scaling for 4K and other higher resolutions
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2017, 10:39:48 PM »
It's entirely possible (a lot of Winamp skinning ends up removing that from what is being interacted with so it fits to the skin) though for it to look correct it really needs to be done in a different manner compared to trying to do it within the confines of the classic & modern skin engines.

-dro