GUI Optimized for 4K

spinomaly
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GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby spinomaly » Sun Nov 05, 2017 11:49 pm

I have a Sony XBR 4K "monitor" and noticed that some of the UI components are not scaling well and seem to not have enough resolution. For example, the text on the buttons. Is this to be expected?

I did some searching in this forum as well as the Yahoo forum but did not find anything. If I missed it I apologize in advance.

Thank you,
Loren Betts. PhD
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w-u-2-o
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Re: GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby w-u-2-o » Mon Nov 06, 2017 2:26 am

PowerSDR mRX PS is not "DPI aware". That is to say, all controls and labels are designed to remain a fixed number of pixels in extent. Thus, if you have a display with a high DPI (dots per inch, or pixels per inch if you prefer) scaling, then those controls and labels will look quite small. This is a side effect of its extremely dated UI design and execution, which has its roots in the original, legacy version of PowerSDR used on the old Flex 1000 through 5000 series radios.

You can play games with Windows DPI scaling, however then you lose the advantage of the effectively greater display real estate of 4K displays.

The only solution at this point is to make certain you use a sufficiently large 4K monitor, say something in excess of a 30" diagonal extent. Or have very good vision in both of your eyes ;)

It is worth noting that Simon Brown's SDR Console software does not have this problem, being designed in a fully modern, up to date fashion. However that software, while presenting an intensely beautiful appearance, is still not as feature rich as PowerSDR mRX, and it relies on the very alpha Protocol 2 firmware which has not proven stable on all radios, even demonstrating different performance on multiple instances of the same radio type (variations in stability from serial number to serial number).

73,

Scott
spinomaly
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Re: GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby spinomaly » Mon Nov 06, 2017 2:35 am

Thanks Scott. I have loaded the source and have it compiling in VS. Making my way around the code.
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spinomaly
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Re: GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby spinomaly » Tue Nov 07, 2017 1:31 am

I was able to solve the issues I was having with blurry text. The default scaling in Win 10 is 300%. I found that 175% is a good compromise. Not sure if others have seen this as well.
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Re: GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby SA3ATF » Tue Nov 07, 2017 9:25 am

I have my setting on 125% scaling and think it works well on my big 4k monitor.

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Tommy, sa3atf
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Re: GUI Optimized for 4K

Postby W2PA » Tue Nov 07, 2017 3:16 pm

I'm using an LG 32" 4k monitor and Win 10 scaling at 125%. With this setup I can fit the six components of DXLab that I use most (cmd, dxk, dxv, pf, pv, sc), along with OpenHPSDR mrX 3.4.2 and WSJT-X with JTAlert - all with a bit of extra screen room left over to bring up DXLab's ww if I want (although running ww and WSJT simultaneously shouldn't ever logically happen).

I've tried running it at 100% scaling too. It works fine and gives even more screen real estate, but things get just a bit too small for comfort unless I do many adjustments inside individual windows. To strike the right balance I think I'd have to go to a bigger physical screen size than I want.

Lastly, I'll mention that this particular monitor has many adjustments. It takes some significant playing around with them to get everything looking really nice. I still find that *some* applications still exhibit font color artifacts (e.g. certain characters that should be black appearing in another dark color).

On balance, I really like operating this way and having only one monitor taking up room.
73,
Chris, W2PA

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