The widescreen trend and desktop real estate

[triplesick]

This is probably too long. Short version: do you think GUIs will start being designed differently to take advantage of widescreen monitors?

Widescreen is getting more popular. As a sign of the times, Alienware (which I can't afford of course) isn't even offering laptops with 4:3 screens anymore. However, it seems to me that all computing tasks, aside from watching movies, would work better on a full screen monitor.

Word processing: the page you're writing on is taller than it is wide.
Websites: on this forum, you scroll up and down, not left and right.
Gaming: many games don't even offer wide screen support. (of course, the pro FPS player will prefer a widescreen monitor to maximize his/her field of view)

To top it off, most GUIs are designed to consume vertical space and make the usable area even more "wide." Firefox's tabs, for example, and the default panel locations in every OS at the top and/or bottom of the screen. Openoffice has toolbars at the top, which look awkward when dragged to the side.

I haven't ever seen this discussed elsewhere. Do you think this will someday lead to a radical revision in GUIs? Do you think new software will be designed to better accommodate widescreen displays?

[CharlesA]

I haven't seen a laptop in a couple years that wasn't 16:9 or 16:10.

[TheNessus]

word processors like Kword and OOO can be fit to widescreens, just drag the toolbars to the side(s). very comfty.
Soon everything will be made specifically for widescreen, other kinds of screens are passing into a world of happyness and bliss, but it would take some time.

[toupeiro]

Most widescreen monitors can be flipped portrait so you have more "length" for word processing, then traditional landscape for side-to-side real-estate. In this regard, they are far more versatile than standard 4:3.

[TheNessus]

for web surfing, I optimized my Opera for widescreen: I removed window decorations from it and put the address and search bar at the bottom. that way its wide and also not too cluttered at the top:

[triplesick]

aha! excellent! the world is not going mad. indeed, a wide screen turned vertical is a tall screen. perfect for word processing. if only there was a way to stand my laptop on its side without looking like and idiot.

[jimrz]

"aha! excellent! the world is not going mad. indeed, a wide screen turned vertical is a tall screen. perfect for word processing. if only there was a way to stand my laptop on its side without looking like and idiot."

might make typing a bit cumbersome, as well

[cartman640]

This is probably too long. Short version: do you think GUIs will start being designed differently to take advantage of widescreen monitors?

Widescreen is getting more popular. As a sign of the times, Alienware (which I can't afford of course) isn't even offering laptops with 4:3 screens anymore. However, it seems to me that all computing tasks, aside from watching movies, would work better on a full screen monitor.

In my experience this isn't the case, nearly everything I do is better on a widescreen monitor.


Word processing: the page you're writing on is taller than it is wide.

True, but how about the ability to have two documents side by side? After all your screen isn't getting shorter (taller if anything given the increase in pixel density), only wider.


Websites: on this forum, you scroll up and down, not left and right.

I do agree with you on this one, some websites scale very well, but there are still a large amount that are ~800 pixels wide, which looks ridiculous on a 1920 pixel wide display.


Gaming: many games don't even offer wide screen support. (of course, the pro FPS player will prefer a widescreen monitor to maximize his/her field of view)

Not true, I can't think of any games in the last three or four years that haven't supported widescreen, I'm sure there are some, but all of the big name games support widescreen just fine. Even some older games will display fine on widescreen. For those few games that don't, most video cards and some monitors will keep the proper aspect ratio, so you just get black bars down the sides.


To top it off, most GUIs are designed to consume vertical space and make the usable area even more "wide." Firefox's tabs, for example, and the default panel locations in every OS at the top and/or bottom of the screen. Openoffice has toolbars at the top, which look awkward when dragged to the side.

True, most day to day apps aren't designed with widescreen in mind, but we are starting to see apps that do work nicely. I spend a large amount of time working with the Eclipse IDE, which is so much better on a widescreen, the ability to have a couple of source files open and view them side by side without line wrapping is brilliant.


I haven't ever seen this discussed elsewhere. Do you think this will someday lead to a radical revision in GUIs? Do you think new software will be designed to better accommodate widescreen displays?

I hope so, I'm sure there's some wonderful way of using all this desktop real estate just waiting for someone to work it all out. Perhaps common toolbar space, or automatically hiding tools, borderless windows etc. I think Apple is heading in the right direction with tools in separate windows to allow for more content, but it's far from perfect.

Certainly an interesting topic to discuss though :)

[Dimitriid]

Gaming: many games don't even offer wide screen support. (of course, the pro FPS player will prefer a widescreen monitor to maximize his/her field of view)

Games I have installed right now:


Prototype
GTA IV
Fallout 3
The Witcher
Last Remnant
Burnout Paradise
Call of Duty: World at War
Crysis


Out of those, only Prototype doesn't immediately detects my native resolution which is non-standard ( 1364x768 ) but still offers a 16:9 resolution ( with max AA and AF the lower resolution is not noticeable ). Even older games I've tried can detect my resolution correctly or offer 16:9

The only thing I consider annoying which I haven't been able to get is widescreen framebuffer on Linux. I know its possible ( it works by default on gparted live cd ) but I can't get it to work on ubuntu.

[madhi19]

I love my widescreen monitor mainly because it also my HDTV and ps3 monitor. This is the future I don't see peoples owning dedicated 4:3 computer monitor anymore. Why should you when you can do so much more and save some serious cash.

[Mateo]

I maximize everything so I don't see much of a difference. The good thing about widescreen is that "sidebar" types of apps no longer waste space.

[Warpnow]

On widescreen I usually put my panel vertically on the left, using xfce and the icon box panel item.

Conserves alot of vertical real estate. I utterly despise wide screen monitors, though, except for watching movies.

[starcannon]

In response to whether U.I.'s will be designed to "fit" widescreen formats; I'm not sure if anything needs done. Outside of the obvious wallpaper issue, most everything else scales nicely to different screen sizes and ratios. I am sure that some thought could be put into making a 16:9 centric interface, but I'm not sure it should. There are so many 4:3 screens already in existence, that I would worry a bit about backward compatibility. For now I think the best thing would be to continue making interfaces as widely useful as possible.

Okay, mostly thats my opinion on what I think should happen, what I think will happen; yeah most likely designers are going to go after the very ratio they are designing in; which, is most likely 16:9.

[markbuntu]

Wallpaper should be vector graphics for scalability. Some of it just looks like crap spread across my three monitors but some looks quite nice, like some of the new karmic wallpapers.

[triplesick]

I can't think of any games in the last three or four years that haven't supported widescreen, I'm sure there are some, but all of the big name games support widescreen just fine. Even some older games will display fine on widescreen.

F.E.A.R. and battlefield 2 did not ship with widescreen support at all. patched to support it, of course, but i've never heard of a game not supporting full screen.

bioshock, definitely a big game and a new game, only included a half-hearted widescreen option that just cropped a full-screen image. gamers claimed it gave them headaches. again, patched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bioshock_widescreen.jpg

you made some solid points though. actually, i have yet to play a fully 3d game that truly could not be made to work in widescreen. even old games have always had at least community-created mods to implement widescreen. and i definitely prefer the way games look in widescreen vs. fullscreen.

about word processing, i disagree. actually, my 1280:800 IS "shorter" than the old 1280:960, and zooming out enough to see two pages side-by-side makes text too small to work with.

even so, the possibility of turning a wide screen upright is definitely superior to 4:3 for this sort of application.

[Nerd King]

Personally I've modified my firefox to use Tree Style Tabs which gives a real tangible benefit to widescreen. Also, I have sites zoomed in to make full use of the width available.

[Dr. C]

When comparing different form factor monitors the actual size of the the monitor (surface area) vs the marketed size (diagonal length) is critical. A 19in 5x4 monitor is actually 21.2% larger in surface area than an 19in 16x9 monitor, in fact it is equivalent to a 23in 16x9 monitor, but both are typically sold as "19in" monitors.

As for the popularity of widescreen monitors this is driven to a large degree by manufacturers and retailers who figured out they can sell a monitor that is 20% or more smaller and still sell it as a "19in" monitor to unsuspecting consumers.

[hessiess]

Regardless of monitor aspect ratio, the best way of working is to minimise the GUI and learn/create key bindings. This is both a lot faster and gives you more screen space for displaying the thing you are working on.

[benj1]

google has modified their home page due to the prevelence of widescreen monitors on higher resolutions.
thats why the text entry box is larger now

[PhilGil]

Personally I've modified my firefox to use Tree Style Tabs which gives a real tangible benefit to widescreen. Also, I have sites zoomed in to make full use of the width available.
Same here. Took a few days to adjust, but having the tabs on the side rather than on top really opens up Firefox when using a wide screen monitor.


As for the popularity of widescreen monitors this is driven to a large degree by manufacturers and retailers who figured out they can sell a monitor that is 20% or more smaller and still sell it as a "19in" monitor to unsuspecting consumers.True, we have to be educated consumers. However, I still have more screen real estate on my 23", 1920x1080 resolution monitor than I did on my 19" at 1280x960.

[Dr. C]

True, we have to be educated consumers. However, I still have more screen real estate on my 23", 1920x1080 resolution monitor than I did on my 19" at 1280x960.
The pixel size is smaller and you have finer resolution, but the surface area is about the same. The result is smaller text and in some cases the need to zoom. No amount of marketing spin can change the basic laws of geometry.

[CharlesA]

The pixel size is smaller and you have finer resolution, but the surface area is about the same. The result is smaller text and in some cases the need to zoom. No amount of marketing spin can change the basic laws of geometry.

A 23" and 19" monitor has the same surface area? Personally I'd rather be running 1920x1200 on a 24+"

I've run 1920x1080 on a 22" TV before, it's hard to read text when you are a couple feet away. :P

[PhilGil]

The pixel size is smaller and you have finer resolution, but the surface area is about the same. The result is smaller text and in some cases the need to zoom. No amount of marketing spin can change the basic laws of geometry.

No one told me there'd be math :P...

Resolution (pixels): 1280x960
Width (in): 19
Pixels/inch: 67.37
Height (in): 14.25
Screen Area (sq in): 270.75

Resolution (pixels): 1920x1080
Width (in): 23
Pixels/inch: 83.48
Height (in): 12.94
Screen Area (sq in): 297.56

So there is more screen real estate on the 23 inch monitor, but there is also a significant increase in pixel density.

[earthpigg]

for web surfing, I optimized my Opera for widescreen: I removed window decorations from it and put the address and search bar at the bottom. that way its wide and also not too cluttered at the top:

off topic, but would you mind telling us a bit about your panel? :D

[pwnst*r]

Most widescreen monitors can be flipped portrait so you have more "length" for word processing, then traditional landscape for side-to-side real-estate. In this regard, they are far more versatile than standard 4:3.

most? no.

[hessiess]

The pixel size is smaller and you have finer resolution, but the surface area is about the same. The result is smaller text and in some cases the need to zoom. No amount of marketing spin can change the basic laws of geometry.

With resolution dependent applications, yes. with resolution independent applications, no.

GTK is very scalable, just increase the font size in the theme settings, and pray that people will quit developing apps which are hard coded to 72 DPI.

[benj1]

No one told me there'd be math :P...

Resolution (pixels): 1280x960
Width (in): 19
Pixels/inch: 67.37
Height (in): 14.25
Screen Area (sq in): 270.75

Resolution (pixels): 1920x1080
Width (in): 23
Pixels/inch: 83.48
Height (in): 12.94
Screen Area (sq in): 297.56

So there is more screen real estate on the 23 inch monitor, but there is also a significant increase in pixel density.

screens are measured corner to corner so
19^2=a^2+b^2
so if we divide the screen into 4 diagonally we get 4 triangles with 2 sides of 9.5 (19/2)
so the outsides equal:
9.5^2+9.5^2=13.453^2

so a square 23in monitor is 13.453x13.453in

[PhilGil]

screens are measured corner to corner so
19^2=a^2+b^2
so if we divide the screen into 4 diagonally we get 4 triangles with 2 sides of 9.5 (19/2)
so the outsides equal:
9.5^2+9.5^2=13.453^2

so a square 23in monitor is 13.453x13.453in
I knew someone was going to call me on the diagonal measure as soon as I posted. Here is the calc with the screen size measured corner to corner:

19" (1280x1024)
density: 86.27 pixels/inch
screen area: 14.84 in x 11.87 in = 176.1 sq in

23" (1920x1080)
density: 95.78 pixels/inch
screen area: 20.05 in x 11.28 in = 226.04 sq in

[triplesick]

pray that people will quit developing apps which are hard coded to 72 DPI.
i agree, this is a good solution. tomorrow is sunday, i'll see if i can get my church to throw "quit developing apps which are hard-coded to 72 dpi" into the morning service somewhere.

facetious of course :)

[toupeiro]

most? no.

Maybe yours doesn't but all the other ones I've seen recently pivot on their stands. Screens also use universal mounting holes on the back, so you can always buy a new stand for yours. ATI and NVidia drivers have supported this for a long time,

So.. Most? Yes.

[hessiess]

i agree, this is a good solution. tomorrow is sunday, i'll see if i can get my church to throw "quit developing apps which are hard-coded to 72 dpi" into the morning service somewhere.

facetious of course :)

:lolflag:

[Skripka]

Maybe yours doesn't but all the other ones I've seen recently pivot on their stands. Screens also use universal mounting holes on the back, so you can always buy a new stand for yours. ATI and NVidia drivers have supported this for a long time,

So.. Most? Yes.

The drivers support it sure...I haven't seen an LCD panel sold around here that supports changing the orientation. So, "most"=No. Last I checked, a majority on of the panels on NewEgg didn't support it either.

[triplesick]

@ the discussion of screen orientation:
regardless of whether "most" support it or not, it's an excellent solution. most people probably don't care about vertical space, but those that do can be sure to buy a monitor that can rotate.

@ hessiess, i just noticed your sig. "sceen space is a precious resource." good call :)

[TheNessus]

off topic, but would you mind telling us a bit about your panel? :D
it's a normal gnome-panel with 100% transparency, using DockbarX.

[longtom]

When comparing different form factor monitors the actual size of the the monitor (surface area) vs the marketed size (diagonal length) is critical. A 19in 5x4 monitor is actually 21.2% larger in surface area than an 19in 16x9 monitor, in fact it is equivalent to a 23in 16x9 monitor, but both are typically sold as "19in" monitors.

As for the popularity of widescreen monitors this is driven to a large degree by manufacturers and retailers who figured out they can sell a monitor that is 20% or more smaller and still sell it as a "19in" monitor to unsuspecting consumers.

This is a very good observation. I got a 17 inch monitor for work and was quite surprised that it was wide screen and therefore a lot smaller than the 5:4 monitors we normally use. Quite irritating really - and small.

So of it went to the file server....Don't want anybody to develop eye problems....

I like the 5:4 more - or find a different (and more descriptive) way to give the size of a monitor

[benj1]

I like the 5:4 more - or find a different (and more descriptive) way to give the size of a monitor

what like width x height

that would actually be quite useful, because the only reason we measure corner to corner now is historical, original crt screens were round so the measurement was the diameter,

[longtom]

what like width x height


That appears to be the least complicated, most descriptive and most honest way.

No lets go and argue whether it should be metric or imperial....:P

[benj1]

metric would appear to me, to be the least complicated, most descriptive way. :)