Re: row and column size not being preserved when switching X displays

[Nick Lamb <njl98r ecs soton ac uk>]

On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 05:23:53PM +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:
> Hopefully a smart and almost completely automatic method can be
> implemented by taking the DPI provided by the XServer as a
> 'recommendation' (but without trusting it so much as to get caught
> out by disinformation).

Gnumeric should be able to do just fine by clamping the provided resolution
value within a reasonable range (say 50-250 dpi) and providing some sort
of override (e.g. the existing gconf value).

The GIMP had two problems which we don't have 1) A large number of users
with larger than typical displays (e.g. 21" CRT display in 1998) and no
DDC or similar in their X server to calculate the correct display size.
2) It was trying to use resolution to do image transforms, not just
choose font sizes, non-square scale transforms look _awful_ even if they are
technically correct, so a lot of people want to override them.

Actually I suspect that The GIMP could scrap this particular run-time
setting and get away with it these days. However scrapping the entire
run-time config is dangerous because The GIMP is a big beasty - you can
really ruin the performance & cause untold problems by just accepting
the defaults on a multi-user system. Once you decide to let the user
choose swap locations, RAM cache parameters etc. you might as well let
them hold a ruler up to the screen too...


Gnumeric does not have such problems, the clamp & override trick ought
to be enough to keep our users happy.

Nick.