The issue of DPI

[Nuutti Kotivuori]

Mikhail Gusarov wrote:
> Twas brillig at 00:50:26 08.08.2007 UTC+03 when Nuutti Kotivuori did gyre and
> 	gimble:
>
> NK> With such a high DPI value just about all software (which are affected by
> NK> DPI) become unusable, since the text on the software is way too large for
> NK> the screen.
>
> DPI is mostly for applications which need to draw things of known size
> (e.g. maps), so reporting wrong DPI is just brain-damaged.
>
> Corellation between DPI and fonts size is the unfortunate artifact
> of fonts implementation, and MUST be corrected at the fontconfig
> side (I'm pretty sure it can be fixed just in fonts.conf).
>
> Reporting wrong DPI might have the same effect as stupid widget
> systems on Windows - do you know why most of the displays on the
> market have such low DPI?  Just because Windows applications can't
> adjust to the higher DPI, so hardware manufactures are forced to
> create 75-100 DPI displays (and software developers have to deal
> with subpixel rendering as the consequence)..
>
> ps: 3rd-party binary-only crap is the biggest handbrake of
> engineering.

This is a rather idealistic e-mail to an actual real world problem
(IMHO, no offence meant).

In short I would argue that reporting the "correct" DPI is just
brain-damaged - because almost none of the systems currently in use
are running with a correct DPI setting.

UNIX traditionally has used either 75 or 100 as DPI, regardless of
display size or the resolution used on that display. And DPI has
affected font sizes back then as well.

For some reason, DPI is taken to signify how big (some) things should
be drawn, even though it should only be used for stuff like maps - the
UI size should be an entirely separate setting (I would not want
graphical elements to be the same size with my 24" 1920x1200 desktop
display and my 17" 1920x1200 laptop display since the distances I view
these displays from are different).

So unless OpenMoko wishes to go against all of desktop UNIX to
convince that DPI should be separate from UI size - I don't think the
reported DPI should be the actual physical DPI.

That said, however, I don't feel terribly strongly about this issue -
I would just like it to be an *informed* decision to make the reported
DPI equal to the physical DPI, with an awareness of the problems it is
likely to cause.

-- Naked