Future trends in skins

from WinCustomize Forums
It strikes me that as screen resolutions increase we are faced with a choice.

a) design things at the same size (in pixels) and hence have everything get smaller and smaller as resolution increases

b) design things bigger (within reason!) so that they can take advantage of increase detail whilst staying approximately the same final size to the user.

At present, it seems that most people (me included) are happy to luxuriate in the increased desktop realestate liberated by ever shrinking icons/window borders etc...BUT, what about when screens become 4000x3000 pixels?

Current skin/icon designs at that resolution on even a 19" screen (assuming that to be common in the future) would render even a 128x128 pixel icon at less than 1/2 an inch (1.23cm) across - and more worryingly, a 4 pixel window frame border at just 0.4 mm!

There will undoubtedly be changes to the way the GUI works in that time (Longhorn developments regarding use of Direct3D and emphasis of vector based interface designs noted), but is there milage in designing skins that will take advantage of these developments?

It would mean windows that are incredibly "chunky" looking on a current display @ 1024x768, or even 1400x1050 - but these designs will look great as technology catches up

Whatcha think?
14,325 views 32 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

skinning has a future?

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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top


...and growing I would lay money on.

(but seriously)

If I had any money, I'd be looking for shares in companies like StarDock...Everything these days tends to be "skinable": Mobile phones, portable CD players - even some cars and some shoes.

I see it as an extention of the industrial revolution (with the emphasis on revolution)...things before industialisation tended to be bespoke (even if lots were made). Industrialisation and factories brought about the famous "any colour as long as it's black" idea. Now, people are able to express individuality within mass produced goods through customisation being designed into them, and it seems that people like that - enough to pay for it too. Look at how much people will pay for a little bit of extruded plastic to clip on the front of a mobile phone? As computers become ubiquitous in the home as the center of an integrated entertainment system, you can bet that Mr.Gadget will want his fancy system to look better/different to his mate, Mr.GotOneToo

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
svg - very true...I wonder when WindowBlinds will support importing that format directly?
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
whenever computers get fast enough, and the range of screensizes gets large enough to require it.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Are there any skinning formats that actually use svg now? and does svg have any advantage over flash, which does basically the same thing?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
btw Sput - this is a great question and should be good for a lot of intelligent discussion... (now that I have to go somewhere )
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As long as we are stuck with 72dpi interfaces, this is a moot point. If your resolution increases (and I mean the dpi ratio) skins will get bigger and stay the same at the same time (get it?).

At any rate, vector based skins should be more fun, primarily because of its flexible scaling and rotation and stuff.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
#6 by DavidK - 2/18/2004 2:11:44 PM Are there any skinning formats that actually use svg now? and does svg have any advantage over flash, which does basically the same thing?


a, yes. Metacity, GTK+ and icons (all *NIX stuff, GTK+ is ported to Windows though). there are probably a few more, but these are the main ones.

b, SVG is a completely open format.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

...BUT, what about when screens become 4000x3000 pixels?

HeHe...at least my skins will fit on the screen then.......

Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
craeonics - but we're not stuck at 72dpi. Most displays now will operate at at least 96dpi and usually higher.

For example, lots of 15" laptop screens we've dealt with recently are running at 1600x1200, which means a dpi of...er..(quick bit of pythagorus again)...12" horizontally with 1600 pixels, is 133.33 dpi. And I can assure you that everything is TINY on those. Standard 32x32 icons become just 1/4" across (approx - or 6mm)...If you don't believe me I'll have to have someone bring one in and take a digi-photo of a ruler held up against the screen

I certainly can't wait to see vector based GUI's start....oh wait a moment, I already have It was called a NeXt Cube and we had one in the research lab when I was at Uni back in 1989! So, Microsoft are only 15 years behind the state of the art already
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
BoXXi - just what I was thinking about my own virtual skins, which prompted me to ask the question.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey - I just realised that I wrote my first "skinable" application back then too - under X windows you can choose different window manager apps to change the appearance depending on your preferences...does anyone know an earlier computing example of things being "skinable"??

(sorry - going off at a tangent now!)
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What about those that cannot afford to keep up with the latest ??




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Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hah I forgot about metacity and xwindows...and I am using them right now!
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yeah, but, I wasn't talking about hardware resolutions, but software resolution. Windows will be drawn at 72 dpi no matter what res your hardware has.

Perhaps "dpi" isn't the right term for this. What I mean is that an icon will be drawn as (say) 48 pixels, regardless and independent of what your hardware res is. This is because the GUI is bitmap based.

So if you want to get that in sync with your hardware res, you'd either need multiple versions of each icon, scale things up or use vectors.

Alright, someone code me a vecotr based GUI! *drool*
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ahum, I appear to have completely re-iterated the first post.

At first, vectors would seem to be the ultimate solution. For scaling upwards that is. Scaling downwards is a different beast altogether. With vectors, you'd run the risk of critical details being blurred out when you get too small, so in that case bitmaps would be better.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
craeonics - an icon with 48 pixels will be drawn with 48 pixels - you're right - but the higher the resolution of the screen, the smaller each pixels will be

I'm not sure why you think that Windows can somehow scale icons to keep things the same size regardless of screen resolution. This just isn't the case at all.

Try switching your screen res down to 640x480 to see what I mean

Increased resolution on the screen means smaller "things" in Windows. The only (?) bit of Windows which can/does scale things to different sizes depending on resolution (if you ask it to) is the system fonts. Other than that, things are rendered on screen with the number of pixels they were created with, not the size they were created at.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
craeonics - the problem of scaling vector images to small sizes is a valid one - something that fonts address by using hinting as well as the basic vector data...they use other methods too, but hinting is the one I like

I can't imagine how hinting data would work with svg images though, so you're right - a fall back bitmap version of any interface would probably be needed....or, you just don't let people make things too small in the first place
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Umm, yeah that's exactly my point.

When I talk about scaling, it's on the topic of "the future of skinning", if a GUI used that does allow scaling.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ahhh...I just read the bit about rotating things with vectors. What a cool feature that would be! I could lie down and have the stuff on screen swivel to stay the right way

Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Right, that one ^^^ should be in between your posts (otherwise it'd be out of context).
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
craeonics - d'oh! I get you now! /IF/ a future GUI supports scaling things to keep things at a virtual 72 dpi (possibly for backward compatability with older apps that don't know about the new wizzy vector API?) /THEN/ things would grow/stay the same independantly of hardware resolution...Yup, I agree now
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Speaking of rotation, something I miss in most graphic apps is the ability to rotate the canvas without translating the pixels (and thus blurring, anti-aliasing and messing up the image).

Normally when I draw, I draw wiht my right hand and rotate the paper back and forth with my left hand all the time.

The only app I know that seems to incorporate that is Painter.

/me slides off topic
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
true type fonts are vectors I think.

and yes vector is what the gui should be made of next. when the pixels get so small you can't see them, you will be able to size a vector to any size on the monitor and it should look sharp. small or big.