Screen size?

[pjutter]

I'm wondering what size people use for documents that are going fullscreen in the standalone. I set my document for 1024 x 768. I noticed that it's blurry for one of my co-workers who uses an 800 x 600 size screen. What do most folks use? I thought 1024 x 768 was probably the standard now, but I guess I don't really know.

Wondering if I should make the next CD 800 x 600 and set the allowscale to false.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

Thanks, Phyllis

[pjutter]

One thing that surprises me in Flash is that bitmap images don't scale DOWN well. I would have thought that showing a 1024 x 768 scaled down to 800 x 600 would keep the images pretty crisp. But they look much worse at the lower resolution. They look worse at a larger size too, but at least I expected that.

Ugh, now I'm worrying that I've messed up by designing this at 1024 x 768! I wonder how many of my viewers will get the blurry version. I guess I'll go panic now.

Eek!

Phyllis

[XcVbSdRw]

Phyllis,

Although 1024x768 is the most common setting, 800x600 is still widely used. For our designs we usually fix our main presentation at a size good for 800x600 (we recently did one at 760x460) and then either disallow resizing or simply have a nice complimentary background color when it is resized (and keep our main presentation centered).

Here is one resource for tracking browser stats. There are lots more!

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Good Luck!

[pjutter]

Hey thanks!

Yeah I usually do work at 800 x 600. But so many of my coworkers use 1024 x 768 (or even higher) that I decided to work at that res instead (mistakenly thinking that it would scale down okay). Oh well, it's a small-run CD. I imagine most of my viewers will see it how it was intended to be. Most will be company executives with newer computers. I'll put a "Best Viewed at 1024 x 768" note in there somewhere.

I'll probably go back to 800 x 600 for the next one.

Thanks!
Phyllis

[Northcode]

Check out www.northcode.com/misc/launcher.zip for a FREE utility that will let you launch different versions of your projector based on the users current screen resolution. There are instructions inside the ZIP file. Using the application launcher, you can republish your SWF with graphics at the correct target resolution and avoid scaling problems.

[pjutter]

Hey, that's awesome! Just downloaded it and read the document on it. Will definitely give that a try. Thanks!!! I was kind of worried about the 800 x 600 users as my logos look kind of blurry at that size. Not worried about the Macintosh side -- I have never seen a Mac set lower than 1024 x 768 (maybe their monitors are better).

Anyway, looks like a great utility! Thanks again!

Phyllis

[pjutter]

Well drat. I realized I can't just switch out the graphics (what I'd hoped) -- I have to redo the whole stage area. Blah. I might try that on the next version though. Since I'm out of time to do those kind of changes on this particular CD (already missed my deadline!), curious if anyone knows where I can find a utility for changing the viewer's resolution. Preferably one with some options (i.e. only change their screen resolution if it's LESS than 1024 x 768). I don't *like* the idea of changing a viewer's resolution but wouldn't mind experimenting with it a little (and just seeing whether or not it's too obnoxious) if there are any utilities out there.

Thanks,
Phyllis

[XcVbSdRw]

personally, I hate when a program changes my screen resolution, even temporarily.

if the payoff is worth it it might be OK (for example, I tolerate it in games) but I'd never do it for marketing stuff like demos and presentations.

just my 2 cents!

[pjutter]

Yup, I don't like it either!

Most of the CD's I make are compilations of files from different companies (for their use in getting financial information about each other). I'm likely to get gripes if the logos don't look right (which they might not at a lower resolution). Of course when I switch to an 800 x 600 box that's not likely to be popular either (so many of my co-workers have large monitors). I'll double-format when I can, but I won't always have that kind of time.

The annoying part is that Flash is supposedly able to handle EPS files. I had all these logos in EPS format but couldn't find any way of saving them where they would import correctly. So can't make a good scalable copy. Blah.

Phyllis

[Northcode]

I wrote this utility a looong time ago now. It works but has one drawback, it could mess up the positions of the icons on your screen. I know how to get around this now ('cause I did it for SWF Stusio) I just need to update the utility. You can start testing with this one and bug me if you want me to rewrite it to fix the icon thing

Read the instructions below and test it out by running it from a DOS window to make sure you know how it works before trying it from Flash. You'll need to put the call in a BAT file if you're not using a third party projector tool.

usage: CHANGERES width height [bpp]

- width and height are the desired dimensions of the screen
- bpp is the (optional) color depth of the screen in bits per pixel

valid values for bpp are:

8 = 256 colors
16 = 65536 colors (high color)
24 = 16.7 million colors
32 = true color

If no bpp value is specified, CHANGERES will keep the color depth the same and only change the width and height of the screen.

CHANGERES will enumerate the supported video modes on the users machine and only change the desktop size if the width and height you specify matches a supported video mode.

http://www.northcode.com/misc/changeres.zip

[pjutter]

Wow you write a lot of stuff! I'll try this if I can figure out. The values get listed in the BAT file? (Sorry, haven't created too many BAT files but will see if I can't figure it out.)

Just read some of the stuff about SWF Studio. Sounds pretty cool! Is it still possible to cross-platform code if I were to use it? I know it doesn't have Mac support, but as long as I can get to the script to write some sort of else-do-this-for-Mac part I don't mind if my PC versions have more functionality. They're likely to get used more anyhow. <- I won't call you a spammer if you answer this paragraph.



Phyllis

P.S. oooooooooo I want Flashthing!

[pjutter]

Hm, it occurs to me that I could use your launcher utility with the changeres one (if I figure it out) and end up publishing 3 files:

1. The current 1024 x 768 with allowscale set to false as the default for resolutions other than 800 x 600 (so the graphics won't get scaled upward at really high resolutions)

2. The 800 x 600 file with either a forced changeres (evil) or maybe just a note in it that says something to the effect of best viewed at 1024 x 768 -- click here to change to that resolution (my viewers likely wouldn't know how to do that by themselves). That way at least only an 800 x 600 running copy would get notes about the resolution issues.

3. A third version of the original with allowscale set to true for the Macintosh projector. My Mac audience will be small anyway (and I've never seen a Mac running at a very low resolution).

Just pondering ways to do this.... Thanks for all the help!

Phyllis

[pjutter]

Hey, well I figured out how to use that. Pretty neat! I think I'll use your launcher utility to see if the person is using 800 x 600. If they are, then I'll add a button to their version of the file that will let them change the resolution to 1024 x 768 IF they want (I think I don't want to force it on anyone). I set Changeres again in the Exit button to go back to 800 x 600 (saw that in another thread on this). And for anyone NOT using 800 x 600, there'll be no mention of the resolution issue. That ought to satisfy folks (at least until I can make time to format for both resolutions). I watched for the icon issue you mentioned. I think it went back to normal when the resolution was changed back. Is that not what I should expect?

I think it makes a good option.

Many thanks!
Phyllis

[pjutter]

Oh okay, I see it now. Same arrangement except some of them are now off the bottom of the screen when I switched back to the lower res. Hm. Must go dig up the lost icons now. Eh well.

So hm. If you *feel* like changin' that some time...... :-D
I'd sure appreciate it. But you've already been a huge help, so no worries if you don't feel like it.

On a side note: I've just discovered that your proxy utility is a LOT smaller than the one I'm using (flashgeek) which has an enormous DLL file with it. I'm gonna use yours only on the next one.

Thanks, Phyllis (I'll stop rambling in this thread now.)

[Northcode]

Actually I just realized that in order to fix CHANGERES I'll have to turn it into a utility like the application launcher. The fix to avoid messing up the icons only works while the application that changes the resolution is running. As soon as CHANGERES ends, the resolution will pop back to normal. Sounds like I'm going to have to amalgamate several utilities into one...

[pjutter]

Interesting. Sounds like too much work though! The launcher is really cool. I finally sent out my first CD to be duplicated and used it on there. I'll eventually use it to do 2 copies so that resolution is better at the low end. Wish Flash would scale down better!

Thanks for all your help. I think my first Flash CD is gonna be a success. Definitely looks better than the old ones I did in HTML.

Phyllis

[jamin]

that res chnager is dope! ... one issue I found though ... it defaults to 60hz refresh rate on all my rigs when it changes res ... some monitors at higher res and low refresh go crazy!

[Northcode]

Yeah, it just picks the first resolution that matches the dimensions you specify which will almost always be the 60Hz one. Tow mods that I want to release are (i) keep the refresh rate the same as the current refresh rate and (ii) allow you to specify the refresh rate. Neither change is tough, just need to find a little time

[jamin]

wow! cheers!

in the mean time however, or to save you some time, I have found a small free app that does just that.

Its called "ResSwitch.exe" (google it .... its there). To run it, just create a BAT in the same folder as it (FSCOMMAND folder or whatever) and in the BAT call:

ResSwitch.exe 800 600 32 75

where 800 is any screen width, 600 height, 32 colour depth, and 75 is refreshrate.

It seems to read from the graphics driver. If you set a res to high for the card or monitor, it pops up a window stating you are outside the known accepted params (or something similar).

If you call the BAT from flash with Northcode's 'proxy.exe', then you are in business!

Cheers, Northcode!