

My Experience with the Surface Pro 2 as a Software Developer - bicubic
http://messymind.net/my-surface-pro-2-experience/

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jonchang
The silver lining: As more of these kinds of DPI scaling issues crop up,
hopefully developers will starting taking accessibility seriously, in order to
make their applications usable for people with visual (and other) impairments.

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bicubic
I absolutely agree with you and look forward to 4k displays becoming
mainstream and forcing developers to support high dpi.

I think its inexcusable that a bare bones winforms application doesn't scale
correctly, and that I'd never know about this issue without a high dpi device.
This is one place where Microsoft has total control and they should be
ensuring that everything built with visual studio works on their devices out
of the box. Hopefully VS2013 will address this.

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cnahr
Microsoft has addressed it since WinForms 1.0, except that it's unfortunately
not automatic. You need to include a simple application manifest that enables
the dpiAware flag, as described here: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/dd464660%28v=VS.85%2...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/dd464660%28v=VS.85%29.aspx)

That article stops short of Windows 8.1 which provides new multi-monitor
options. Here's the latest manifest overview:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2013/09/10/manifest-m...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2013/09/10/manifest-
madness.aspx)

~~~
cnahr
Further clarification: The manifest is the same you'd use for native
applications. Microsoft automatically enables DPI awareness for WPF because
that framework scales _all_ coordinates automatically with DPI settings.
WinForms doesn't do that. It requires extra code for proper DPI scaling, hence
you need to manually apply the manifest _if_ you have done that extra work.
(Auto-generated Visual Studio projects might automatically provide both the
necessary rigging and manifest, not sure.)

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chris-at
Windows should at least implement 200% scaling (like retina on the Mac) where
apps are useable/look OK, even if they don't support scaling at all.

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cnahr
Windows has offered 200% scaling since Windows 7, and made the option more
obvious with a new radio button in Windows 8.1.

~~~
chris-at
Yes there may be a button but it still renders most apps "blurry".

~~~
cnahr
So does the 2x scaling of Mac OS-X with any app that isn't retina-enabled...

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sahaskatta
Hmm, I've tried the Surface Pro 2 (HDPI display) in a multi-monitor setup
along with a standard display which is not HDPI. I didn't have any issues with
it. Microsoft apparently did quite a bit of work in this area for Windows 8.1:
[http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/extremewindows/archive/20...](http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/extremewindows/archive/2013/07/15/windows-8-1-dpi-
scaling-enhancements.aspx)

Also, I very much have to agree with you on the touchpad. While the Type Cover
2 keyboard is fairly good in my opinion, the touchpad is horrendous. It is too
small. There's too much friction (it feels like a microfiber cloth rather than
being smooth as glass). The left/right click buttons have no tactile feedback
when you click, not to mention it's hard to tell where they are located.

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butner
You lost me at "Surface."

