[forms-devel] Scaling sizes (Fonts/Width/Height) of across devices

Fri Jun 17 05:47:59 UTC 2016

*To me a useful system would be a reliable way to get a scale-factor for
manually mapping sizes in Xamarin-Forms to cm or inches, that way I could
make sure the UI is readable/usable in all cases no matter the device. This
could then be applied to all GUI elements, not just fonts.*

This is what I'm looking for, eg making sure the UI is usable in all
devices and it would need to work with Xaml. It seems like a missing piece
that should be in the core framework.

Thanks

*Michael Ridland | Technical Director | Xamarin MVP*

XAM Consulting - Mobile Technology Specialists

www.xam-consulting.com

Blog: www.michaelridland.com

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Christoffer Årstrand <
christoffer.arstrand at yooba.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First I want to apologize if I am sending an email to a list which was
> intended to be Xamarin internal. I mainly subscribed out of interest of
> seeing what was worked on.
>
> ---
>
> I have been following this thread now and I think one first needs to
> clearly define what exactly it is that one wants to achieve.
>
> In the given example you are comparing a 6” device with a 10” device but
> what is the end goal here? Should the label font be scaled so they appear
> the same height physically on all devices or the same height based on a
> percentage of the screen size (or height I guess)?
>
> The former is what I would expect from such a system, but the latter is
> what would make the GUI “look the same” across devices of different screen
> sizes and resolutions, disregarding aspect ratios.
>
> Coming from iOS side I am already used to never talk about pixels but
> instead points which the system then maps internally to screen pixels.
> However, iOS is blessed with devices with roughly the same points (not
> pixels!) per inch which makes it a lot easier.
>
> To me a useful system would be a reliable way to get a scale-factor for
> manually mapping sizes in Xamarin-Forms to cm or inches, that way I could
> make sure the UI is readable/usable in all cases no matter the device. This
> could then be applied to all GUI elements, not just fonts.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Christoffer Årstrand
> Development Lead
>
> Yooba Head Office +46 11 - 12 20 90
> Visit: Västgötegatan 7, 602 21 Norrköping
>
> Yooba Stockholm +46 8 - 410 035 40
> Visit: Engelbrektsgatan 7, 114 32 Stockholm
> www.yooba.se | christoffer.arstrand at yooba.com
> se.linkedin.com/in/arstrand
>
>
> From: <forms-devel-bounces at lists.xamarin.com> on behalf of Michael
> Ridland <rid00z at gmail.com>
> Date: Friday 17 June 2016 at 06:29
> To: Jason Smith <jason.smith at xamarin.com>
> Cc: Forms devel <forms-devel at lists.xamarin.com>
> Subject: Re: [forms-devel] Scaling sizes (Fonts/Width/Height) of across
> devices
>
>
> This is the same Forms code, on iPhone 6 and Nexus 10. I would expect if I
> used a dynamic/scaled size they would match more evenly, just a idea, not
> sure if it's bad or good.
>
> <StackLayout>
>         <BoxView HeightRequest="20"  ></BoxView>
>         <BoxView HeightRequest="20" BackgroundColor="Blue" ></BoxView>
>         <Label FontSize="16" Text="Welcome to Xamarin Forms!"
> VerticalOptions="Center" HorizontalOptions="Center" />
> </StackLayout>
>
> [image: Inline image 1]
>
> Thanks
>
> *Michael Ridland | Technical Director | Xamarin MVP*
>
> XAM Consulting - Mobile Technology Specialists
>
> www.xam-consulting.com
>
> Blog: www.michaelridland.com
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Jason Smith <jason.smith at xamarin.com>
> wrote:
>
>> So what would <Label DynamicFontSize="8" FontSize="20" /> produce?
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 8:40 PM, Michael Ridland <rid00z at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I'm wondering if something like this would work, as a user I would like
>>> to be able to set a width/height/font that dynamically changes to look the
>>> same on all devices.
>>>
>>> <Label DynamicFontSize="8"  DynamicPadding="16"
>>> DynamicHeightRequest="20"
>>>
>>> Does that make sense at all? There might be a better word than dynamic..
>>> scaled..
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> *Michael Ridland | Technical Director | Xamarin MVP*
>>>
>>> XAM Consulting - Mobile Technology Specialists
>>>
>>> www.xam-consulting.com
>>>
>>> Blog: www.michaelridland.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:22 AM, Jason Smith <jason.smith at xamarin.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As a side note, a better API would probably be
>>>>
>>>> double fontSize = Device.GetUnitFontSize (double size, MeasurementUnit
>>>> unit); where MeasurementUnit is some enum that contains something like:
>>>>
>>>> ScaledPixels,
>>>> ScreenPixels,
>>>> Point
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 10:20 AM, Jason Smith <jason.smith at xamarin.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The best idea we have come up with is as follows:
>>>>>
>>>>> double fontSize = Device.GetPixelFontSize (double pixelSize);
>>>>>
>>>>> However this has some implementation issues around the fact that point
>>>>> size doesn't always perfectly map to pixel size due to a bunch of tiny
>>>>> factors. So a good solution would be do change FontSize from a double to a
>>>>> FontSize struct which could be a double + unit combination, however this
>>>>> would represent a breaking change we cannot take, so the above is the best
>>>>> we got which appears to be quite misleading in some edge cases. This is the
>>>>> reason we haven't done it so far.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Michael Ridland <rid00z at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One limitation of Forms that I come up with in all projects is the
>>>>>> limited ability to set sizes which scale based on platform density etc.
>>>>>> I've been pondering some solutions I can put onto nuget, but that's the old
>>>>>> way now Forms is open source.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What idea's does the Forms team have for this and would you like any
>>>>>> help to build this into core?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Michael Ridland | Technical Director | Xamarin MVP*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> XAM Consulting - Mobile Technology Specialists
>>>>>>
>>>>>> www.xam-consulting.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Blog: www.michaelridland.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> forms-devel mailing list
>>>>>> forms-devel at lists.xamarin.com
>>>>>> http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/forms-devel
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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