I noticed when setting a windows Height and Width (or Min/MaxHeight and Min/MaxWidth in that regard) to a specific value like 800x450 that the window itself can be smaller then the set values. The only time those values are actually accurate is when setting the WindowStyle to None.
MainWindow:
Size set in XAML: 800x450
Actual Size: 786x443
SecondWindow (Light Blue one in the Background)
Size set in XAML: 800x450
WindowStyle: None
Actual Size: 800x450
What causes the the window to be smaller than intended? Also is it always a difference of 7px in Height and 14px in Width?
It is the gap between old, traditional window bounds (location and size) and "extended frame bounds". The latter is actually visible window bounds and can be obtained by DwmGetWindowAttribute function with DWMWA_EXTENDED_FRAME_BOUNDS. These two bounds match, in the case of WPF, when WindowStyle=None and AllowsTransparency=True.
As far as I know, the thickness of gap is 7px (left, right, bottom) when monitor DPI is 96 (default, 100%) and increases as monitor DPI increases. You can find a number of tips to deal with this gap by searching the above keywords.
I have a Window in C# (System.Windows.Window).
I've looked into the documentation and for some reason, the window's width and height are not measured in Pixels but in (1/96)Inch.
is there Any way to set and get a window's size in Pixels instead of the aforementioned unit?
I've found ways of getting the size of the current working area in pixels (which is not necessarily my window) but not of setting it.
additional info:
OS: windows.
I need to let a form get bigger than 2128:1860 which seems to be the biggest dimension.
how can I expand it?
I've already tried expanding it via properties
I'm working with Visual Studio, in C#
The maximum value for a form size is based on the resolution of the screen:
From the docs:
The maximum value of this property is limited by the resolution of the
screen on which the form runs. The value cannot be greater than 12
pixels over each screen dimension (horizontal + 12 and vertical + 12).
I've got a 2D game that I'm working on that is in 4:3 aspect ratio. When I switch it to fullscreen mode on my widescreen monitor it stretches. I tried using two viewports to give a black background to where the game shouldn't stretch to, but that left the game in the same size as before. I couldn't get it to fill the viewport that was supposed to hold the whole game.
How can I get it to go fullscreen without stretching and without me needing to modify every position and draw statement in the game? The code I'm using for the viewports is below.
// set the viewport to the whole screen
GraphicsDevice.Viewport = new Viewport
{
X = 0,
Y = 0,
Width = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth,
Height = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight,
MinDepth = 0,
MaxDepth = 1
};
// clear whole screen to black
GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black);
// figure out the largest area that fits in this resolution at the desired aspect ratio
int width = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth;
int height = (int)(width / targetAspectRatio + .5f);
if (height > GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight)
{
height = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight;
width = (int)(height * targetAspectRatio + .5f);
}
//Console.WriteLine("Back: Width: {0}, Height: {0}", GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth, GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight);
//Console.WriteLine("Front: Width: {0}, Height: {1}", width, height);
// set up the new viewport centered in the backbuffer
GraphicsDevice.Viewport = new Viewport
{
X = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth / 2 - width / 2,
Y = GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight / 2 - height / 2,
Width = width,
Height = height,
MinDepth = 0,
MaxDepth = 1
};
GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);
The image below shows what the screen looks like. The black on the sides is what I want (and is from the first viewport) and the second viewport is the game and the cornflower blue area. What I want is to get the game to scale to fill the cornflower blue area.
Use a viewport http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.viewport_members.aspx
As is also the case in commercial games, you should provide an option to the user that allows them to switch between 4:3 aspect and 16:9 aspect. You should be able to just modify the camera viewing ratio accordingly.
EDIT:
As far as I have seen, there are no games that 'auto-detect' the proper aspect ratio to use.
As has been pointed out, there are ways to make a good guess as to what the proper aspect ratio is. If XNA allows you to get at the current Windows user's screen settings data, you can determine an aspect ratio based off of the monitor resolution.
Once you have determined the monitor resolution of the user, you can best decide how to deal with it. At first, the best bet may be to just put black bars on the left/right side of the screen to allow full-screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio that is essentially still using the 4:3 artwork.
Eventually you could modify the game so that it changes the viewing port size when the aspect ratio is 16:9. This wouldn't require changing any art assets, just how they are being rendered.
First of all I'm assuming you're talking about XNA 4.0, which AFAIK there are breaking changes between XNA 3.x and XNA 4.0.
I'm relatively new at XNA, however it seems to me that your assets does not fit the size of the window. Let's say that your game are is 320x240 and your window is bigger e.g. 640x480.
Thus you can specify PreferredBuffer in order to scale up your application. So, tell to XNA you are going to use 320x240 by setting the following values;
_graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 320;
_graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 240;
Additionally you can start fullscreen mode by setting:
_graphics.IsFullScreen = true;
Also, you have to handle manually the how the items should change their size once the Window has changed their size.
Checkout my sample at.
https://github.com/hmadrigal/xnawp7/tree/master/XNASample02
(BTW, you can press F11 to switch between fullscreen and normal view)
Best regards,
Herber
I'm not sure if you can actually scale your view port like that. I understand what you're trying to do, but to do it you'd have to do the following.
Set your screen backbuffer width and height to the 16:9 resolution.
Program in the displacement so that objects didn't draw in those borders.
The thing is, all major games these days, if you play them on a 16:9 monitor and select a 4:3 resolution, will stretch to fit the screen. This isn't something you usually want to overcome. You either support many resolutions in your game, or you will get stretching when a user uses the wrong resolution for his or her screen type.
Usually, one sets up their game, and their textures to work based on the relative dimensions of the current viewport or backbuffer width and height. This way, regardless of the resolution inputted, the game scales to work with that width/height ratio.
It's a bit more work, but in the end, makes your game far more polished and compatible with a wide array of systems.
The only time this may not be done is if the app runs in a window (NOT fullscreen).
I have an application with a textbox, and the width of the textbox on the screen must always be 17,5 centimeters on the screen of the user.
This is what I tried so far:
const double centimeter = 17.5; // the width I need
const double inches = centimeter * 0.393700787; // convert centimeter to inches
float dpi = GetDpiX(); // get the dpi. 96 in my case.
var pixels = dpi*inches; // this should give me the amount of pixels
textbox1.Width = Convert.ToInt32(pixels); // set it. Done.
private float GetDpiX()
{
floar returnValue;
Graphics graphics = CreateGraphics();
returnValue = graphics.DpiX;
graphics.Dispose(); // don’t forget to release the unnecessary resources
return returnValue;
}
But this gives me different sizes with different resolutions.
It gives me 13 cm with 1680 x 1050 and 21,5 cm with 1024 x 768.
What am I doing wrong?
The method graphics.DpiX does not give the real dots per inch of the monitor. It returns the DPI set in Windows Display properties, mostly either 96 or 120 DPI.
It is not possible to read the real DPI of the monitor. Microsoft did research this for Windows Vista/7 but as long as manufactures of monitors do not provide a standard way to read the value from the monitor hardware it will not be possible.
Yes, unfortunately Xenan is right.
To workaround the problem you could allow a sort of by hand calibration, done by the user.
e.g. draw a line of 400 pixel on the screen, ask the user to measure it on the screen and set the result. Now is really simple to calculate the PPI (pixels per inch) that is your calibration.
Width property of the Size structure depend on PageUnit and PageScale settings of the Graphics class. Try playing around with these settings to get your desired effect. Since you most likely need to modify these settings on the Paint event of the control, I suggest you create your own custom TextBox control instead.