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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#751

Post by [deleted] »

dsabanin wrote: post #131
the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

I love my 3 monitor setup. In 20 years of coding, I finally reached peak productivity in my workspace. No switching between windows, ease of throwing a window aside for monitoring, laying out information and tools side to side. It’s incredible once you readjust your habits and learn to use that new space. I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I was one of…

[deleted]

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#753

Post by hgvsbs_fjnddb »

the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

My personal setup:

1. Top-tier Macbook Pro 2. Portable Macbook (Air)

I used to have #1 with two large-ish monitors and I hated it. Two monitors are effectively a single 2xW monitor and that means moving your head from side to side constantly. Having them X inches above your keyboard means moving your head up and down (I touch type but need to look at the keyboard occasionally).

A laptop means a hi-res screen and a keyboard in close proximity. Instead of moving your head around you can use Spaces.

The second laptop can act as a second screen if you need it — as well as a coffee shop runner and a backup if your main machine is down or getting serviced.

It’s the same cost or less than a powerful laptop and two external monitors, assuming you are buying hi-res.

I’ll never go back to a 2-3 monitor setup.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#754

Post by kccqzy »

torb-xyz wrote: post #176
chrismorgan wrote: post #95

Concerning the smoothing, I presume this is macOS’s glyph dilation. pcwalton reverse engineered it in order to replicate it in Pathfinder (so that it can render text exactly like Core Text does), concluding that the glyph dilation is “min(vec2(0.3px), vec2(0.015125, 0.0121) * S) where S is the font size in px” ( https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918991457532354560 ). Fun times. Trouble is, people then get used to m…

I tried turning off smoothing and frankly the text was uncomfortably thin to read. I guess maybe their font should just be bolder by default so you don't need the glyph dilation to compensate.

I totally agree.

In Leopard that font smoothing preference wasn't a checkbox, but a drop-down menu specifying how much font smoothing. If you select "Strong" you get a result that looks even bolder than normal. Even when a website is using an extraordinarily thin font, this setting makes it readable.

Apple replaced the drop down menu with a checkbox in Snow Leopard, but the underlying functionality wasn't removed until Catalina. Naturally I was very disappointed after my upgrade to Catalina because all text looked too skinny to me.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#755

Post by [deleted] »

platz wrote: post #215
ComputerGuru wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the default under both Windows 10 and Gnome 3 for hi-dpi displays. In fact, it’s near impossible to get fractional dpi working across the board on Gnome 3.

I use i3 but I'm sure there are Nvidia settings to control the x display somehow

[deleted]

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#756

Post by smacktoward »

thruhiker wrote: post #611
nvarsj wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p display at work. Low DPI monitors are pretty much unusable since MacOS dropped subpixel rendering - with fonts being a blurry mess. You can only really use MacOS with high DPI monitors now for all day working. It’s a huge problem for everyone I know who wants to plug their MacBook into a normal DPI display. Not that the subpixel/hin…

This is an interesting position. I have always thought that font and font rendering were always an especially pernicious issue with Linux and a relative joy on MacOS?

As with most things Apple, it is a joy as long as you restrict yourself to only plugging the device into official Apple peripherals, preferably ones that are available to buy right now. It’s when you start hooking your Mac up to old hardware or random commodity hardware that the problems surface.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#757

Post by OkGoDoIt »

jt2190 wrote: post #725
cmroanirgo wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May favourite dev environment was a 7" Android 4 running Debian. I got plenty done with an external keyboard. I bang away at my mba 13" 2013 these days and the only real gripe i have is the lack of delete & backspace keys combo: I've never gotten comfortable without it. That said, the only reason i could possibly use more screen real estate is web debugging. But to me that's more of an indictment of the environment I…

> ... the only real gripe i have is the lack of delete & backspace keys combo I’m not sure I follow. Are you complaining about the lack of a dedicated Delete key on Macs, having to use only one key for both Backspace (Delete key) and Delete (Fn + Delete keys)?

That personally bothers me a lot, as does the lack of home and end keys. Yes I know there are key chords to accomplish the same function, but having a dedicated key as part of your workflow makes a big difference. Maybe if I worked on my Mac 100% of the time I wouldn’t mind, but I only use a Mac about 20% of the time and it is incredibly infuriating.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#758

Post by st-isidore »

mov_ wrote: post #664

This is a fantastic post, I just bought a 28", 158 dpi monitor recently and spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to maximize the font quality. Since there weren't any suggestions for linux, this is what I did for Ubuntu 20: * 2x scaling * Downloaded libfreetype, enabled subpixel rendering option, replaced existing libfreetype.so (I think Ubuntu 20 might already have this enabled, but just to be safe I did it ma…

Thanks, I saved this to use later when I get a better monitor. How did you devise these steps though if I may ask? And what are these things?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#759

Post by Rapzid »

Yeah, IDK. As nice as "retna" displays are I still use 1080p screens on my desktop. At my viewing distance, and with sub pixel rendering, the smallest text on Hacker News is perfectly legible and even clean looking.

Sure, if I get within 12 inches of the screen I can start to make out the pixels. But even then due to sub-pixel rendering it's hard to make out individual pixels at a foot if the contrast isn't too great between the text and the background.

That being said interestingly one of my screens, a newer Asus that's precisely one model version higher than the other, handles high-contrast sub-pixel text rendering quite a bit worse than the other :|

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#760

Post by Rapzid »

the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

You'll dislike a HDPI display in a bunch of linux distros; 100% assurance on that.
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