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20-11-2006, 11:39 AM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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Bitmap v Vectors and 10.5's Resolution independent UI
Bitmap v Vectors and 10.5's Resolution independent UI
If anyone's interested, I've just written a short article on the subject, with some visual examples showing the pros and cons of the two options, plus an opinion on where things might and should go.
All roads lead to bitmap
Quote:
...Both sides of the fence raise some good points. Most of the discussion is related to file size, rendering speed and display at small sizes.
If we assume file size is something that can be resolved (Haiku’s icon format makes a great start) and rendering speed is something that we can overcome (I think this is a massive issue, but let’s dismiss it for now), then we’re left with display issues at small sizes (there’s more, but I’ll talk about that later).
There’s not really any quick fix for displaying vector icons at small sizes. There’s nothing like a hand tweaked bitmap. My apologies for the gratuitous use of our logo, but it’s all I have on hand that suits the purpose.
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If you like it, then please Digg it!
Last edited by Disko; 20-11-2006 at 11:55 AM.
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20-11-2006, 12:49 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Adelaide, SA
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I thought the stuff related to that, which will be in 10.5 will allow say a notebook user, to plug it into a monitor, and see the desktop arrange itself (with icons) and window sizes to the same as it'd look on the notebook.. if that makes sense  |
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20-11-2006, 01:59 PM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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It sure does.
That's kind of what this debate is all about... icons and UI elements that can be scaled up and still look good. It's a really tricky thing to do, and there's not really a clear answer as to weather vector or bitmap images are better. I think icons will always have to be bitmap though.
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20-11-2006, 04:26 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Central Coast, NSW
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Does anybody know if this resolution independent UI will allow the UI to be scaled down, so I could make my 12" pb look like it's running at 1280x1024??
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20-11-2006, 04:40 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Norwood, Adelaide.
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It's frontpage on digg now 
__________________
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20-11-2006, 07:08 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Oatlands, Sydney, Australia, Earth, Milky Way, Virgo Supercluster
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I was so glad to see someone with some solid graphic experience discuss this issue, I can totally understand what you mean - thanks. That article was a great help to me. Australia is in DIGG a lot these days, yes?
2nd Bit:
If today, all 72-120dpi screens magicaly gained more dots, say up to 300dpi (like paper/prints)
This issue would not be a big deal would it? The only reaon we have a problem is we can still SEE the pixels... Where as 300dpi, we would not.
I can imagine, when I am older, talking about the good ol' days when the pixels on the screen where so small, we could actualy see them!
3rd Bit: A lot of people don't seam to get it on DIGG do they?!
They think that you couldn't have created a "perfect" 1px vector line that doesn't go out site 1px - thats not the point, if you resize it to 110% (as res. indep. would alow), you will get fuzzyness (anti-aliasing) around it.
Last edited by pixelperfect; 20-11-2006 at 07:26 PM.
Reason: added 2nd + 3rd Bit
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20-11-2006, 11:59 PM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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pixelperfect : Thanks. I'll try to add some more posts on the topic soon. I just hope I don't get Digg flamed again :P
#2: Nup, not really. More pixels just need high res images to fill them. I don't know why a slight jump in DPI means people are thinking we need to throw everything out and switch to all vector-based UIs!
#3: Meh. What can you do about it??
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21-11-2006, 01:31 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: At a place called Vertigo
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My take is - a mix of elements needs to be used to get things looking right. For example, the icons in OSX with their different sizes that blend into each other seamlessly are still bitmap, and rightly so - bitmaps are much more flexible and easy to create. However, scrollbars, the top menu bar, the dock and interface buttons should probably all be vector based so the user can define a size that's comfortable for them to use with their particular setup.
I have a sight impaired friend who uses his ibook in 800*600 just because its so much easier for him to see the text in the interface and scrollbars. Being able to scale this through the OS would make things even sharper and easier for him to see.
Another thing would be the abilitiy to change colours of elements in the UI. Not so people can wank off and have garish combinations, but some people need higher contrast elements to see them.
My 2c.
__________________
Q: How many Apple Newtons does it take to change a light bulb? A: Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup.
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21-11-2006, 01:43 AM
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NSLog(@"%@", [self customTitle]);
Group: Regulars
Location: Melbourne
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ford.boy
Another thing would be the abilitiy to change colours of elements in the UI. Not so people can wank off and have garish combinations, but some people need higher contrast elements to see them.
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Try pressing Command-Option-Control-8!
__________________
"A company must go out and find what the customer wants ... The need is not for, say, half a million ¼-inch drill bits. The needs is that there are ten million ¼-inch holes that need to be drilled." - Robert Noyce
"Algorithms that forget their history are doomed to repeat it" - Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach (Russel & Norvig)
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21-11-2006, 12:17 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: At a place called Vertigo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by forgie
Try pressing Command-Option-Control-8! |
lol. Cause I've never seen that before :P
__________________
Q: How many Apple Newtons does it take to change a light bulb? A: Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup.
'Cooper' - Intel iMac 24"; 3.06Ghz C2D, nVidia 8800GS-T, 2GB, 500GB
'Falcon' iPhone 3G 16GB White
'Boo' - iPod Nano 3G 4GB
'Tiny' - iPod Shuffle 2G 1GB Blue
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21-11-2006, 01:40 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: syd nthn beaches
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scored a mention on TUAW, nice one
__________________
Well you tell me what you saw/And i'll tell you what you missed
Last edited by gurgle; 21-11-2006 at 01:42 PM.
Reason: cnat splel...
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24-11-2006, 11:35 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Brisbane, QLD
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Did you get "the digg-effect" or something, cos the site doesn't seem available.
http://islayer.com/blog/?p=87 ( The page cannot be found)
Yuuuck ... hosting on IIS ... no wonder the site is down. :P
I would have liked to have read the article as I find it interesting, since the Haiku project is using SVG icons.
And this WYSIWYG editor for the forum is terrible, off to options now ... hope I can turn it off ...
__________________
iMac G5 *** NEED TO UPDATE -- GOT LOST IN THE UPGRADE ***
Intel Mac mini Core Duo 1.66Ghz 1GB RAM 120GB HDD + EyeTV DTT + Canopus ADVC-55 + RemoteBuddy
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24-11-2006, 01:58 PM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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Our site is back now.
Digg probably doesn't do as much damage as our typical widget downloads on a release day for iStat... We've been having some other problems. Should be resolved really soon though.
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