Target Stack-Screen Rect for Cross Platform Apps

[Richmond]

On 12/17/2010 10:12 PM, Sivakatirswami wrote:
>  I want to develop some edu things that will first and foremost end up 
> running on a PC (win or mac mostly) and getting displayed on a 
> projector in front of children.
>
>
> But we plan to build out these apps, so that they have considerable 
> resources for a studious individual to dig into them on their own 
> time... so that they could run in the future web plug in and also in 
> an iPad. Even future tablets.
>
> The hot new tablet in India is only 800 X 600, which was a bit 
> disappointing, but clearly they wanted to deliver something you could 
> easily hold..
>
> So I would be interested in any of your thoughts. I will probably lock 
> it down to landscape since the design will be used on projectors...
>
Bear in mind that the cheaper end (although one could hardly call data 
projectors 'cheap') of
the projector marlet delivers a screen res of 800 x 600 as well as your 
tablets.

> If we build for XGA then it will take the entire vertical space (768) 
> but I'm thinking that's not a good idea as I'm learning there are 
> still a lot of hot notebooks that are XGA screen rect and they will 
> want to see their task bar...Also if you do it in a web browser plug 
> in sometimes the browser is hogging as much as 100 pixel for the URL 
> field and all the widgets running in IE -- I screen shared on Skype 
> with a new PC users recently and it seemed like they almost had 150px 
> of "stuff" at the top of their browser and they did not a) use any of 
> those widgets and b) did not know how to turn off their appearance. So 
> the stack diagrams I had made on Lucid Chart for them to look at were 
> partly below their screen...(forcein them to scroll up and down) until 
> I suggested they turn off all that stuff at the top of the browser 
> window.
>
> The most conservative way to go would be to build at 800 X 600...it 
> would still look pretty good on an iPad (but might not get accepted 
> into the store because of the size?) but I'm itching to use more space...

I'm sure you are; however more space is a luxury. It is a discipline to 
confine oneself to
a smaller screen size. However, if one remembers what wonders were done 
with sub 640 x 480
screens, one will realise that a lot can be done in 800 x 600; just 
don't display the end result
on some whopping-great screen as the pixelation will make your eyes go 
very funny indeed.

>
> Any thoughts?
>