[Bf-committers] Automatic DPI detection issues

[Sergey Sharybin]

How would one know which scale factor to apply? That scaling factor would
depend on a value which Blender detected and which is impossible to know
unless you start doing python onelines in the console (which is not
friendly at all).

My X11 server was reporting weird DPI of (88 x 89), which was only causing
problems in Blender running with factory startup. All other applications
and Blender with my previously saved suerprefs are displaying fonts
properly.

What i'm saying is:

- Using auto DPI for faqctory startup but not for saved userprefs is just
wrong.
- Not reporting detected DPI is also wrong.
- Not being able to correct auto-detected DPI also sounds wrong. All the DE
will have option to override X11 DPI specifically for the case when X11
reports wrong DPI.

P.S. I wouldn't know if other applications are detecting DPI correctly (as
in, not sure they are using crappy DPI of 88x89 or are rounding it to some
more commonly used DPI), but it's only Blender which has badly rendered
fonts on my system.
P.P.S. Surely i can force/correct X11/DE's DPI, but then i don't see any
benefit on the auto-detection of DPI. It only causes issues rather than
solving anything.

On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 1:15 PM, Brecht Van Lommel <
brechtvanlommel at pandora.be> wrote:

> As mentioned in the commit log, the UI Scale setting in the Interface tab
> can be used, doesn't that work?
>
> If you look at the equivalent settings for Windows/macOS/Gnome/Unity/..
> they also offer a scale or percentage. I see no reason to show the absolute
> DPI.
>
> Linux doesn't have a single window manager standard for specifying DPI, but
> we use the same convention as Chrome or Firefox which works in many window
> managers, it certainly isn't random. Are you saying the DPI is not being
> detect correctly on your system, while it works in other applications?
> Perhaps we can fix that?
>
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 12:32 PM, Sergey Sharybin <sergey.vfx at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Today i've run into annoying/hard to predict situation: running my
> regular
> > blender was working fine, but doing --factory-startup was messing up
> fonts
> > in Blender's interface.
> >
> > it turns out, this commit is responsible for such behavior [1].
> >
> > What happens is, when there is existing user-preferences.blend, Blender
> > will use DPI stored in there. Otherwise, Blender will use auto-detected
> > DPI. This has following issues:
> >
> > - This is totally unpredictable, changes Blender interface based on some
> > rather random factors.
> > - Blender does not tell user what DPI it detected (yes, the commit
> removed
> > setting from User Preferences)
> > - If system reports buggy DPI, there is no easy way to know what's
> causing
> > it and how to correct.
> >
> > So i think we should bring DPI setting back to user preferences. It is
> > really bad practice to secretly use setting, without even telling what
> the
> > value of the setting is. It is also bad practice to auto-detect something
> > and not give any clues to user what the detected value is. And finally,
> > there should be a way to override auto-detected DPI, for the exact case
> > when the reported one is bad.
> >
> > [1] https://developer.blender.org/rBfe3fb23
> >
> > --
> > With best regards, Sergey Sharybin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
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-- 
With best regards, Sergey Sharybin