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Well, given the fact that after decades of Mathematica development, it still doesn't even properly support standard Windows displays, I won't get my hopes up, but here goes: Is there anything resembling an ETA for Mathematica at least kind of supporting high-resolution screens on Windows? Even just the half-broken support we have now for standard displays? All I can say, after just having switched to a new machine with a QHD screen, it most certainly does not support high-resolution screens under Windows (or Linux, for that matter) at all. In pithy terms, it flat-out looks like crap, with blurry fonts for both notebook and palette content.

Has anyone seen any signs of hope on that front?

Pirx
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  • I share your frustration but this still might be a duplicate of https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/q/58119/121 – Mr.Wizard Aug 07 '17 at 02:00
  • Not really; that post was asking for a solution (answer: there is no solution; in particular the suggestion given in that thread is entirely unworkable). I was asking whether anyone has any information on plans to fix this unacceptable situation. Or if the answer will once again be Wolfram giving Windows users the finger... – Pirx Aug 07 '17 at 02:06
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    I'm curious what you mean by the claim that it doesn't properly support standard Windows displays. – Itai Seggev Aug 07 '17 at 02:26
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    Mathematica has a hardcoded assumption of a fixed (logical) 72dpi font resolution. That happens to be correct for Apple machines, but for Windows that number should be 96dpi. Long story short, fonts are rendered by a factor of 72/96 too small on standard Windows machines. There's some workarounds for this problem, but this should correctly work out of the box. Hundreds of thousand of Windows applications get that one right; as far as I know Wolfram is the only one who hasn't been able, or willing, to figure this out. – Pirx Aug 07 '17 at 02:32
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    Going between MMA on my MacBook Pro and Microsoft Surface Laptop is jarring. I thought the DPI issue would be fixed long ago on the Windows side. – kale Aug 07 '17 at 02:40
  • Yep, as in: Should have been fixed twenty years ago... – Pirx Aug 07 '17 at 02:42
  • Regarding your criticism of Windows support: I think it is unfair and you are misunderstanding dpi settings. The "correct" resolution depends on your screen (hardware) and not your OS. 72 dpi is no more correct on Mac than Windows. Also, apart from the hidpi support, I find Mathematica to be more polished on Windows than Mac, the biggest example being that the FE on Mac is still 32-bit which puts an annoying limit on the number and complexity of 3D graphics that can be displayed (without risking a crash). – Szabolcs Aug 07 '17 at 07:58
  • But don't put all the blame on Wolfram. There are just too many Windows programs with botched hidpi support, which is probably due to the difficulty on implementing this feature for this OS (i.e. Microsoft's problem). I much prefer a low-resolution slightly blurry program with correctly sized GUI controls than one with an annoying mix of unreadably tiny and proper sized GUI elements (which is all too common on Windows and never happens on Mac). – Szabolcs Aug 07 '17 at 08:01
  • related: 109813 isn't the quote in the accepted asnwer there, the answer here? – Kuba Aug 07 '17 at 08:37
  • @Szabolcs: No, my criticism is correct and deserved. Note that we are not talking about absolute font sizes here. The issue is that, if I select a 12-point font, say, in Mathematica, it will appear at exactly the size of a 9-point font in just about every other Windows program on the planet. Thus it is indisputable that Mathematica renders fonts at incorrect sizes (and always has, since the beginning of time, under Windows). We can also note that this means that the size of text in Mathematica notebooks is inconsistent with the size of other elements, such as graphics, in the notebook. – Pirx Aug 07 '17 at 11:03
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    @Szabolcs: On the other hand, yes, you are correct, there's still plenty of programs out there that do not correctly support high-resolution screens under Windows. That includes a good number of Microsoft-native, built-in applications that come with a brand-new install of Windows 10. That's a disgrace, absolutely, but "tu quoque" is not usually considered a valid defense... – Pirx Aug 07 '17 at 11:24
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    HiDPI support is being worked on. I am not prepared to give an ETA. If I had a magic wand, it would be today. I'm sorry I can't say anything more useful at the moment. – John Fultz Aug 08 '17 at 18:07
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    As for 96 vs 72, there are some genuine difficulties introduced by the fact that we try to provide very similar experiences across platforms, and the platforms have different conventions (Microsoft hard-coded 96 long before screens actually were capable of 96, under the notion that screens are less readable than paper and so really should be magnified a bit from their genuine resolutions).

    That...and...well, let's just say that there are some stories that have to wait for the tell-all book I will probably never publish.

     – John Fultz Aug 08 '17 at 18:12
  • Great, that means there is at least some hope. Thanks! And, yes, I'm sure there's more to this font-dpi story... – Pirx Aug 08 '17 at 18:12
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    @Szabolcs The 32-bit limitation is due to the fact that Apple nixed 64-bit Carbon. If they hadn't done that, we likely would have gotten there by now, just as Photoshop had to wait a couple of extra years for 64-bit. Our interface is in many ways more complex, so the (ongoing) port to cocoa is taking longer. – Itai Seggev Aug 08 '17 at 19:16
  • Have you disabled DPI Scaling in Windows for Mathematica? This fixes the issue. Then you just need to adjust the global Magnification setting in the Option Inspector if the notebook text is too small. – Edmund Aug 08 '17 at 20:57
  • @Edmund: Nope, as with so many other things in Mathematica, that only kind of works, and will open a whole crate of other cans of worms. Stuff like having to recreate all images in help files so you can actually recognize them, text in various dialogs and palettes being cut off, and on and on. – Pirx Aug 08 '17 at 22:34
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    @ItaiSeggev Eagerly waiting for the 64-bit version! I know it won't take long because Apple is promising to drop 32-bit support soon, and—as you said—they are notorious for quickly cutting off older technologies ... I really hope they won't drop 32-bit support fully because I will still want to run older versions of Mathematica ... – Szabolcs Aug 09 '17 at 07:42
  • @Pirx if neither of questions linked by Mr.Wizard and me are duplicates, could you summarize relevant comments in an answer? – Kuba Aug 09 '17 at 07:48
  • @Kuba Good suggestion, will do – Pirx Aug 09 '17 at 13:03

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