Hi Def for Lithium

joakes · 2021-01-29 15:08:01

1st time poster, been using BL since Hydrogen & love it. But, very disappointed that there is no Hi Def available for Lithium. I'd hate to have to go back to the bloated Elementary - the only other distro the has such an elegant DE/WM. I'd stay with Hydro, but many things are no longer playing nice with it (read, chrome & MS Office) & Helium has always had trouble with (actually the other way around) Thunar.

Any plans on eventually getting to the Hi Def desktop?

Thanks.

linux_user · 2021-01-29 18:34:05

Can you explain what do you mean by hi-def desktop?

DeepDayze · 2021-01-29 20:30:13

linux_user wrote:

Can you explain what do you mean by hi-def desktop?

Think he means getting BL to work with a Hi-DPI display.

linux_user · 2021-01-29 20:40:26

I see... I wonder why would Lithium not work well with high dpi displays?

@joakes, What is the DPI of your display and what difference do you perceive with Lithium in it?

Last edited by linux_user (2021-01-29 20:45:50)

johnraff · 2021-01-29 23:23:20

There is a Beam-HiDPI theme available - it was contributed by a forum member - but we never made a Lithium version. Maybe you could look at the differences between Beam-HiDPI and Beam and see what hacks would need to be done on the regular BL-Lithium theme?

Anyway with high-dpi displays increasing it's probably something we should think about for Beryllium.

linux_user · 2021-01-29 23:31:15

In Windows, I had noticed that there is a thing called scale. The default value is 1 and increasing the value increases the size of the text, icons and spaces in order to make things appear a little larger in HiDPI screens. The downside of scale is that it impacts the screen resolution too: if you were to check the screen resolution using some website, it would should an adjusted value.

Is there any such trick available in Linux so that increasing the texts, spacing and icons can apply universally to all windows, and perhaps not technically changing the resolution?

DeepDayze · 2021-01-30 00:12:20

johnraff wrote:

There is a Beam-HiDPI theme available - it was contributed by a forum member - but we never made a Lithium version. Maybe you could look at the differences between Beam-HiDPI and Beam and see what hacks would need to be done on the regular BL-Lithium theme?
Anyway with high-dpi displays increasing it's probably something we should think about for Beryllium.

A very good idea as a High DPI display is in my future too. If any members have one they can take a look at the theme to see what changes needed to be made to the Lithium theme to support Hi-DPI.

ohnonot · 2021-01-30 14:43:20

johnraff wrote:

There is a Beam-HiDPI theme available - it was contributed by a forum member - but we never made a Lithium version. Maybe you could look at the differences between Beam-HiDPI and Beam and see what hacks would need to be done on the regular BL-Lithium theme?

AFAIR, all it had was larger icons, but even that shouldn't be necessary if you use the built-in default, I think.
Possibly doubled border widths, but that's about all.

All the rest should automatically adjust through DPI and font settings.

Except tint2. That's a bigger challenge, because it's measuring just about everything in pixels.

johnraff · 2021-01-31 02:21:45

^There was more to it than just resized icons, as you can see by running something like meld on the two directories. (Of course diff will do recursive directory comparisons too, but in cases like this meld is very quick and easy.)

User @vinzv saw a need 3 years ago, so I'm not so sure that everything will "automatically adjust".

But graphics is out of my zone, so I won't comment further.

ohnonot · 2021-02-01 06:39:52

johnraff wrote:

There was more to it than just resized icons, as you can see by running something like meld on the two directories.

I just did a manual comparison of the two themerc's - there's no relevant differences at all.
The HiDPI theme just seems to be based on an older version of Beam.

So it's really just the icons.

But most Openbox elements resize themselves according to font size, so if the font sizes are right (DPI!) the theme should adapt.

Anyhow, tint2 poses a bigger problem here.

johnraff · 2021-02-01 07:34:12

^It's not just an openbox theme - there are some significant differences in the GTK files too.

But I didn't know OB would adjust pixel dimensions according to dpi.

Anyway, I'm not planning to dive into this - we have other people much more knowlegable on graphics stuff around here.

brontosaurusrex · 2021-02-01 08:54:11

tint2 seems to be fixed by using 'scale_relative_to_dpi'
https://github.com/o9000/tint2/search?q … ive_to_dpi
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3989

Is that not working as expected?

I don't have hidpi monitor, so can't really test stuff, but I imagine (since there is good chance icons are svg and fonts are vectorial in nature anyhow) the 'problems' could be clearly presented by someone with such monitor and some openbox experience with a few screenshots.

So a little doc with the title 'What we have that looks wrong on hidpi stuff' would be a magic start.

edit: Quick tint2 scrot

Last edited by brontosaurusrex (2021-02-01 11:25:11)

joakes · 2021-03-30 15:23:29

@linux_user - sorry been using mac for a while, even though I love BL and would love to return. My display can go up to 2560X1600 and looked phenomenal with helium. Lithium on the other hand, only works well up to 1920X1200 and this is a deal breaker for me.

jeffreyC · 2021-03-30 16:54:26

LightDM slick-greeter supports HiDPI, scaling automatically.

johnraff · 2021-03-31 04:19:24

brontosaurusrex wrote:

tint2 seems to be fixed by using 'scale_relative_to_dpi'
https://github.com/o9000/tint2/search?q … ive_to_dpi
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3989

Forgive my dullness, but does this mean that
scale_relative_to_dpi = 96
would be a reasonable default value, and screens found to have a higher dpi will result in adjusted tint2 dimensions?

brontosaurusrex · 2021-03-31 12:31:26

^I'am guessing that computed dpi may be wrong, so the default should be commented out line (as it is now).

johnraff · 2021-04-01 07:14:55

brontosaurusrex wrote:

^I'am guessing that computed dpi may be wrong, so the default should be commented out line (as it is now).

What our tint2 files have atm is

scale_relative_to_dpi = 0

(not commented out)
Man tint2 says this will disable scaling. Shouldn't we enable it OOTB?

brontosaurusrex · 2021-04-01 07:48:29

I think that's the same as disabled, so fine. But developer could provide the exact info. Maybe worth reading
https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2/-/issues/656

johnraff · 2021-04-01 08:41:22

^That was interesting, though far from convincing either way.

Early on:

o9000 wrote:

Should scaling be enabled by default?
I'm inclined to say yes.

But later it gets much more complicated, with new parameter scale_relative_to_screen_height and other posters getting totally tangled up...

But my question here is: is there some default scaling setting (I thought scale_relative_to_dpi = 96) that would at least sort-of work for users out of the box, or are all users expected to configure this for themselves? Or is no scaling at all the best default setting?

ohnonot · 2021-04-01 17:46:47

^ I think the problem is that barebones Xorg systems don't automagically recognize the correct DPI at all.
No idea where the default value of 96 comes from, but I made the effort to measure & calculate what it really is for my monitor - it's 99. And when applied, it makes a big difference wrt e.g. font rendering.

#1 2021-01-29 15:08:01

Hi Def for Lithium

#2 2021-01-29 18:34:05

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#3 2021-01-29 20:30:13

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#4 2021-01-29 20:40:26

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#5 2021-01-29 23:23:20

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#6 2021-01-29 23:31:15

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#7 2021-01-30 00:12:20

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#8 2021-01-30 14:43:20

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#9 2021-01-31 02:21:45

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#10 2021-02-01 06:39:52

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#11 2021-02-01 07:34:12

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#12 2021-02-01 08:54:11

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#13 2021-03-30 15:23:29

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#14 2021-03-30 16:54:26

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#15 2021-03-31 04:19:24

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#16 2021-03-31 12:31:26

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#17 2021-04-01 07:14:55

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#18 2021-04-01 07:48:29

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#19 2021-04-01 08:41:22

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

#20 2021-04-01 17:46:47

Re: Hi Def for Lithium

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