One Rect For All specificaiton

[Scott Rossi]

Hi Bramanatha:

It sounds like you're working at actual hi-res size when you may not need
to.  You should be able to lay out a stack at half your hi-res dimensions,
and the stack will auto-scale to fit the device. The only upscaling aspect
you really need to be concerned about is images. You can create sets of
images in multiple resolutions and rely on LC's density mapping feature to
display the appropriate image, or you might be able to use single hi-res
images, and show them scaled down on standard res screens (this might
depend on the image content). But for all built-in controls, text and
graphics, LC will do the scaling for you.

As an example, I always create iOS stacks based on the "natural" size (the
LiveCode folks also call it "logical" size) of the device. iPhone 5 is 320
x 568 or iPhone 6 is 375 x 667. When you lay out your stack using either
of these dimensions (note they are essentially proportional), the stack
displays as expected on the device.

I know there are a few folks out there who work at actual hi-res size, and
I understand they're constantly shifting their stacks around on the screen
due to the limitations of most displays (especially with portrait-oriented
layouts).  For myself, I'd rather be able to see the entire layout at
once, at near the same size it's going to appear when held in-hand on a
device, and let LiveCode take care of the scaling.

A great tip I learned from a colleague: When working at natural size and
you want to zoom into a stack to make some fine adjustment, simply set the
scaleFactor of the stack to 2, make the adjustment, and return the
scaleFactor back to 1 when finished.

YMMV.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX/UI Design




On 1/1/16, 12:10 PM, "use-livecode on behalf of Sannyasin
Brahmanathaswami" <use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com on behalf of
brahma at hindu.org> wrote:

>I created buttons that are way too small. also that 1400X 900 pixel stack
>doesn¹t fit easily even on my 15² Macbook Pro. So working on a 30² cinema
>display has advantages for dealing with multiple apps, but it will always
>blindside us with design. I have this problem already with some of the
>team here developing things in Illustrator and they are working way, way
>to big on their screens and when we go to print (e.g. some designer
>working in a 4² space in illustrator on something that will have to be
>printed on a business card) or to mobile, we frequently lose time (and
>the associated gorilla dust in meetings) when that thing is simply way,
>way too small for production.
>
>My first instinct it so scrap the idea of 1400 X 900 stacks as a design
>environment and translate this to the *real* iPhone 6+ rect and then chop
>off the stack by X number of pixels left and right to get from 16 X 9 to
>14 X (
>
>OR I can translate Googles and Apples mandated spec (e.g. icons on the
>bottom tab bar are ideally 40 px tall)  to larger sizes and continue to
>work in a bigger card rect.
>
>So, I guess what I¹m asking here is, for those who are doing a lot of
>mobileŠ how do you handle this problem/challenge? What size space do you
>like to work in and if you do, and if you have already translated the
>mobile device spec sizes for the status/Nav/Tab barsŠ to your larger
>sizeŠ can you share this here?