Managing Sizes - Images in Mobile (was Mobile Template)

[Ralph DiMola]

I took the "ease the pain" path. I include 1 image that looks good on the
best resolution device and then scale it down. I use the iPad Retina for my
calculation. So if I want the image to take up say 70% of the card, I
calculate the size so when it's taking 70% of a Retina screen it look good.
Now when the image displays on a lower resolution device I scale it down to
70% of the current device size and place it where it needs to be. Now this
has one big downfall.....CPU time. If all there were was iOS then creating
all the sizes for the Apple ecosystem would not be too bad although lots of
work when the next gen comes out. With the veritable cornucopia of Android
sizes I determined that it would be an impossible task to have images for
all those resolutions. Now I did all this before there was rescaling in LC.
Back in the day I got Jacque's "You have to roll your own rescaling" reality
check. It's nice to see that rescaling is now in LC. I'm going to give a
whirl soon.

Ralph DiMola
IT Director
Evergreen Information Services
rdimola at evergreeninfo.net


-----Original Message-----
From: use-livecode [mailto:use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf
Of Brahmanathaswami
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2015 6:16 PM
To: How to use LiveCode
Subject: Managing Sizes - Images in Mobile (was Mobile Template)

Hmm... All this buzz about apps that scale everything for every rect, with
CSS and HTML5 etc,

Certainly they are not placing a single instance of a rasturized image at
320 X 568 @ 72  and then expect that to scale up to 1024 X 768
"automatically" and still look decent. Unless the laws of pixel physics have
changed recently, I'm still thinking upscaled low res graphics will yield
rancid results no matter what the framework. Am I mistaken? Even Apple's
iBook Author software called for multiple images at different sizes...

Perhaps one path to "ease the pain" of multiple images could be

1)  see how far you can take your design with vector objects so that scale
relative to appearance is never an issue.

I need to test EPS more extensively and break open Adobe Illustrator's
toolbox. Theoretically this get's us vector if you stay in vector (don't
place jpgs)

"Importing an EPS file creates an EPS object on the current card."

should work big or small..

2) For "single image instance" development, for raster art/photos... go the
other direction: provide images to some larger rect at 150dpi and then when
it scales down, it will look great  (untested).

  It seems to me the total "weight" of the app resources would be the same
if you included 6 files at different resolutions, or just 1 image at a
higher resolution that works for most  contexts. 7.0.3's boot time is a sad
regression, but, once open LC's render time for a larger image into a
smaller rect should not be a issue if the image is local  Am I daft?
Different story of course if you are pulling from a remote server.

Is anyone else thinking/working in terms of this "single hi-res raster image
instance" direction?

If so --  what seems to be good params for the optimal "single image
instance" size and resolution for most devices?

Brahmanathaswami

Geoff Canyon wrote:
>> >  I'm working in 6.7.3, so (as far as I know) there's still some 
>> > sort of  "build it at 320x568 and it will automatically scale up, 
>> > but then you have  to provide double-size graphics, etc." thing going
on.
>
>
> fullscreenmode -- apparently in place since6.5.  I'm looking into it now.
>
> gc
_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode