The Retina War is upon us. • Hacker News Board

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#41

Post by rorrr » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:00 PM UTC

densh wrote: post #21

In my opinion Photoshop is absolutely inappropriate tool in this new era. It was never really meant to design user interfaces. Designers should finally stop thinking in terms of pixels as they don't really make any sense if your application will be shown on screens with more than one kind of pixel density. There should be no problems with using vector graphics on high resolution screens and it will look much better o…

HTML doesn't support vector images well. Yeah, you have SVG in modern browsers, but which one is easier?

or

    

    (fails in IE8- and IE9 quirks)

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#42

Post by sounds » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:02 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #35

The solution is what it always was. Design in units like 'em's, don't override the user defaults, and let the page scale however the end user wants. This not only accomodates the retina/non-retina split, it lets users with bad eyesight increase the font size and still be able to read things. Images? That's a bit harder, but it's not the end of the world. Vector images are useful here, but for higher detail raster ima…

I really like what you're saying.

I don't think designers have to give up on "pixel perfection" - well, they don't have to give everything up.

We already have an enormous gamut of displays for any website. Forcing iOS users to a broken "mobile website" is never going to satisfy the designers who care about being pixel perfect, so they were grappling with these issues already.

And I can't say it enough: we're finally getting past 1920x1080 screens again. CRTs had higher resolutions a decade ago.

Some of us _do_ have good enough eyesight, and some of us _do_ work with videos that big (and the associated images) - yes, there's the Apple 30" Cinema Display, but I seek real competition between manufacturers.

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#43

Post by nathos » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:03 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #38

wmf wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really nothing hard about using vectors; they'll just be blurry because they're probably not pixel-fitted. Also, complex icons are much smaller and faster to render in raster format.

One other facet of vector graphics, they don't always look that great at all scales. I seem to recall a graphics designer blog that compared a vector to an image that was tweaked at the same scale resolutions. The differences were staggering. I don't think vector graphics are a panacea anymore. I'll see if I can find the link, was rather eye opening.

Relevant links in this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4252640

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#44

Post by cpr » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:05 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #33

fjorder wrote: post #30

QUESTION: What makes vector graphics based UI's so hard? I am not a UI designer, so I am ignorant. Please educate me. Several other posters have mentioned the option of moving away from raster graphics, and indeed this was my own first thought. I remember using IRIX back in the glory-days of SGI. For those who have no idea what I'm blathering on about, IRIX was a professional workstation OS that had en entirely vecto…

There's really nothing hard about using vectors; they'll just be blurry because they're probably not pixel-fitted. Also, complex icons are much smaller and faster to render in raster format.

Of course, for Retina displays, those small vector-based graphics will look great. For everyone else, they'll be blurry.

So maybe that will simply add to the "tough for non-Retina users" momentum...

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#45

Post by ksherlock » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:10 PM UTC

WiseWeasel wrote: post #8

It's great that these 2x res displays are becoming more accessible, but the state of web standards is dangerously behind in terms of support for them. Right now, the only way to serve images optimally for the various screens is to have the server attempt to assess the display resolution for the client using either JavaScript or CSS media queries, and then either send different HTML to different clients, with differen…

Safari in iOS 6 and Mountain Lion allegedly have support for -webkit-image-set to specify 1x and 2x imagesin your css.

background: -webkit-image-set( url(...) 1x, url(...) 2x) ... ;

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#46

Post by rorrr » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:10 PM UTC

Tyrant505 wrote: post #10

"but it won’t be long before Retina Cinema Displays replace their outdated siblings" I was honestly surprised with each retina release by Apple starting with the IPhone4. After the initial “aww” of it had passed, it was easier to wrap your head around its production due to its relatively small screen. Now we have 15” macbook pro’s with retina. Apple released a professional production machine for its retina ecosystem…

Search for "Catleap" or "Qnix" on e-bay.

2560x1440px 27" IPS displays at $295 (free shipping).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Qnix-27-LED-Monitor-Full-HD-2560...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/27-Inch-New-Potalion-2710QW-2560x144...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Tempered-Glass-27-Yamakasi-Catle...

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#47

Post by swombat » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

hapless wrote: post #36

This is hilarious. Pro tip: not all your users are graphic designers. It may be the case that the author, and everyone he knows, has new "retina" products from Apple. That's wonderful. But it can't be taken to represent a broader userbase. It seems to me that the web's mainstream properties are built for workers in large corporations to fiddle with when they should be working. Most of these people have 1280x1024, 96…

Speak again in 3 years.

Today, I am a geek (not really a designer) and 2 out of 3 of my devices have retina displays already (iPhone and iPad). Within much less than 3 years, all my devices will. Within 3 years, there will be no Apple device being sold that doesn't have a Retina display. Will other vendors follow suit? If they don't, they'll be left in the dust, so I imagine they will have to, if they can.

It's usually a good idea to skate where the puck is going, rather than where it is now. In 3 years, the puck will be retina. My Macbook Air is not Retina, so I can't be arsed to design for Retina... yet. Once my Mac has a Retina display, I will design for Retina, and let the lower-res experience be inferior. By then, most of the people who care about such things will have Retina displays anyway.

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#48

Post by untog » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #47

hapless wrote: post #36

This is hilarious. Pro tip: not all your users are graphic designers. It may be the case that the author, and everyone he knows, has new "retina" products from Apple. That's wonderful. But it can't be taken to represent a broader userbase. It seems to me that the web's mainstream properties are built for workers in large corporations to fiddle with when they should be working. Most of these people have 1280x1024, 96…

Speak again in 3 years. Today, I am a geek (not really a designer) and 2 out of 3 of my devices have retina displays already (iPhone and iPad). Within much less than 3 years, all my devices will. Within 3 years, there will be no Apple device being sold that doesn't have a Retina display. Will other vendors follow suit? If they don't, they'll be left in the dust, so I imagine they will have to, if they can. It's usual…

Will other vendors follow suit? If they don't, they'll be left in the dust, so I imagine they will have to, if they can.

Said the designer. People were still buying SD TVs years after HD ones came out. I don't disagree that it is good to skate where the puck is going, but it's still too early to worry about it now. A lot of the web design we do right now won't even still be used in three years time.

Once my Mac has a Retina display, I will design for Retina, and let the lower-res experience be inferior.

Terrible, terrible idea. It was only a few days ago that someone posted how ignoring Windows cost them dearly. Don't ever design for the machine you're using, design for your customer. This applies to screen resolution, processing power, everything.

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#49

Post by WiseWeasel » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

ksherlock wrote: post #45

WiseWeasel wrote: post #8

It's great that these 2x res displays are becoming more accessible, but the state of web standards is dangerously behind in terms of support for them. Right now, the only way to serve images optimally for the various screens is to have the server attempt to assess the display resolution for the client using either JavaScript or CSS media queries, and then either send different HTML to different clients, with differen…

Safari in iOS 6 and Mountain Lion allegedly have support for -webkit-image-set to specify 1x and 2x imagesin your css. background: -webkit-image-set( url(...) 1x, url(...) 2x) ... ;

That's 1) just for CSS, 2) incompatible with border-image and list-style-image properties and 3) horribly inefficient, with ugly syntax and a bunch of duplicated effort for developers (since filenames for 1x and 2x image variants are typically identical except for a few extra characters used site-wide for all 2x versions, there should be a way to allow developers to specify only these unique characters one time and avoid that extra work when possible).

Re: The Retina War is upon us.

#50

Post by hapless » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #47

hapless wrote: post #36

This is hilarious. Pro tip: not all your users are graphic designers. It may be the case that the author, and everyone he knows, has new "retina" products from Apple. That's wonderful. But it can't be taken to represent a broader userbase. It seems to me that the web's mainstream properties are built for workers in large corporations to fiddle with when they should be working. Most of these people have 1280x1024, 96…

Speak again in 3 years. Today, I am a geek (not really a designer) and 2 out of 3 of my devices have retina displays already (iPhone and iPad). Within much less than 3 years, all my devices will. Within 3 years, there will be no Apple device being sold that doesn't have a Retina display. Will other vendors follow suit? If they don't, they'll be left in the dust, so I imagine they will have to, if they can. It's usual…

Legacy Windows APIs don't support scalable interfaces. Do you think the Fortune 500 and Global 1000 will phase out every legacy 32 bit application and replace every 1280x1024 display between now and 2015 ?

I don't.

P.S. Does Windows even have a pixel doubler for legacy apps on "retina"-type displays?