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Hi all. I just bought the Galaxy S Vibrant, and I love it. I wanted to change the wallpaper, so I made my own. I crop my pics in Photoshop (960x800) and the sizes come around 500-700KB. I then transfer them onto my phone via Kies. Then when I go into the phone to set the pic as wallpaper, I stretch out the orange crop square to include the full picture, then set as wallpaper. But the pics don't look sharp on the phone. They are not incredibly dull, but they definitely don't look as sharp as I know they are on my computer monitor. And I have a run of the mill $200 computer monitor. Even the factory wallpapers look sharper on the phone. Does anyone know why this is? Great forum, thanks for all the help!
**UPDATE**
Ok so here's what was happening, First off let me just say I finally got reconnected to my PC, don't ask me how, because it took half a day to finally connect, and I have no Idea why it decided to all of a sudden successfully connect to my PC after forever failing to connect. Whatevs....back to the topic at hand. So when I was transferring Pics from Kies to Phone, apparently Kies was compressing the image to save space I guess. I got hooked up as mass storage, looked at the pics on the phone and low and behold my 600+ KB pic was showing to only be a measly 60KB pic on the phone. Big time compression from Kies. So I quickly deleted that garbage off the phone, and instead dragged and dropped my original 600+KB pic on to the phone, it's still at the correct resolution of 960x800, took a look at it on the phone's display and VOILA sheer utter crispness. Just the way it should be. So there you go, DONT USE KIES TO TRANSFER PICS!!! Hope that helps anyone making their own wallpaper. Now to go and see if I can find a solution to this issue of hit and miss with connecting to my PC.
The Samsung i9000 has a resolution of 480x800. If a picture has a different resolution, the phone has to "recalculate" the picture, because the resolutions dont match. At first i would try to change the resolution of the picture to that one of the phone and see if its any better.
Tempott said:
Hi all. I just bought the Galaxy S Vibrant, and I love it. I wanted to change the wallpaper, so I made my own. I crop my pics in Photoshop (960x800) and the sizes come around 500-700KB. I then transfer them onto my phone via Kies. Then when I go into the phone to set the pic as wallpaper, I stretch out the orange crop square to include the full picture, then set as wallpaper. But the pics don't look sharp on the phone. They are not incredibly dull, but they definitely don't look as sharp as I know they are on my computer monitor. And I have a run of the mill $200 computer monitor. Even the factory wallpapers look sharper on the phone. Does anyone know why this is? Great forum, thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried everything from downloading 2560x1600 images to resizing them in photoshop to no avail - they always looked blurred once set as wallpapers on the SGS. Then I tried an iPad wallpaper(1024x1024) and lo' and behold - 't was sharp!
So to anyone looking for custom wallpapers for the SGS just download the ones meant for the iPad and then use the gallery to set it as wallpaper and you'll have a razor sharp wallpaper.
I allways use my photos (taken from digital camera) as they are, without changing resolution. Touchwiz automatically rezises the images/photos to fit the best way. Never had any blured background.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
TMReuffurth said:
I allways use my photos (taken from digital camera) as they are, without changing resolution. Touchwiz automatically rezises the images/photos to fit the best way. Never had any blured background.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be kidding because on my galaxy they look like utter crap. Are you sure they are sharp(have you compared them to the ones that come pre-installed)?
Exellent tip toss3 with the iPad wallpapers! they are really sharp
Toss3 said:
You must be kidding because on my galaxy they look like utter crap. Are you sure they are sharp(have you compared them to the ones that come pre-installed)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really don´t know what you mean! Every photo i use as background looks exactly as it looks on my Desktop Computer. No blur, no distortion, no unscharpening. They really look like the original!
I don´t understand why they should look different!? When i choose a background Photo or image, the Phone gives me the ability to select the part (with a rectangle) i want to see as my background. So the phone automatically crops the photo. I mean why to crop it manually on the home computer? Doesn´t make any sense.
BTW: i haven´t my SGS rooted and haven´t installed a different Launcher.
if you crop your pictures with the tools for setting wallpapers then i agree they are very poor, very blurry!
i cropped one of these images in PS to that reso, and it looks freekin awsome.
are you saving your PS image properly? max quality etc? .png i think is best also
My wallpapers are sharp, if they are in 960x800. Most of the other walls are also sharp, even they would be 1280x800. There is also an app on the market colled: Wallpaper Set & Save. This keeps the wallpaper sharp, but the walls must be the right resolution, cause it scales it to fit the screen automatic.
Metatron111 said:
The Samsung i9000 has a resolution of 480x800. If a picture has a different resolution, the phone has to "recalculate" the picture, because the resolutions dont match. At first i would try to change the resolution of the picture to that one of the phone and see if its any better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes resolution of the screen is 480x800, but the wallpaper needs to cover the area of all 7 backgrounds. That makes it an area of 960x800. The factory wallpaper are all 960x800. For instance the factory wallpaper of the kitten is 960x800 and only 178KB in size. My pic I'm using for my wallpaper is a pic I took with my Nikon D90 cropped to 960x800 and downsized to 616KB. My pic definitely looks sharper than any of the factory wallpapers, but once I transfer it to the phone, it loses some the sharpness.
960 by 800 should be the resolution. Any resizing will produce a less than ideal image. I'm not sure why (probably the algorithm used in resizing the image?) but it's one those little things that hopefully gets fixed.
Try sending it via email to yourself instead of using kies, or uploading it via USB drive.
I've never had any problems with custom backgrounds on the phone.
Spybreak said:
Try sending it via email to yourself instead of using kies, or uploading it via USB drive.
I've never had any problems with custom backgrounds on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or transfer via bluetooth if the laptop/desktop has that
You can just always send you files from pc to phone via bluetooth, while SGS having gps issue, its bluetooth connectivity rocks!
I had this problem which annoyed the hell outta me. Sure I could resize it, but on a modern phone I think it's quite silly that it's not able to auto adjust it automatically.
To get around manual adjustment, use an app called "Wallpaper Set and Save" from the app store. It will do exactly as you need. It's made my life a hell of a lot easier. Or, you could use a wallpaper app to download and set such as Backgrounds or Flikie Wallpapers which also work a treat.
Personally, I'd recommend getting WSS for setting your own papers, and using Flikie for finding new ones. The interface on Flikie is fantastic (similar to the native gallery app), and the range and quality of wallpapers on it are sensational
Edit: Oh, and just to add, if you want to add custom backgrounds to apps like Handcent, you'll have to manually resize them or you'll face the same crop-expand-horrid quality issues.
Ok I have been looking everywhere and can't seem to find a app that will set the wallpaper as is without cropping or cutting the edges off. I know the best resolution is 960x800 but it still cuts off parts of the picture. I've tried wallpaper set and save and a host of other apps from market and various android freeware sites. None of them seem to set them right, any help would be highly appreciated. I have an HTC evo running cyanogen 6.1 stable and everything is so far so good and I want to thank this website because without it I was lost. This is my number 1 forum so I know ill get the answer, its out their please help me find it. Thanks in advance!!
flikie wallpapers hd is about the best ive seen at this. it still crops but i keeps most of the image quality
Only thing I can think of is to take the photo you want, make the actual photo whatever the screen resolution is (480x800 from what I've read) with black bars on the side to make the entire picture file 960x800. Then use launcher pro to freeze the background so it doesnt move when you swipe. Your picture should be centered.
When you select the image for a wallpaper, you see that little box in the center? Drag outwards on one of its edges.
dkelle4 said:
Only thing I can think of is to take the photo you want, make the actual photo whatever the screen resolution is (480x800 from what I've read) with black bars on the side to make the entire picture file 960x800. Then use launcher pro to freeze the background so it doesnt move when you swipe. Your picture should be centered.
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Click to collapse
Thank you all for the speedy replies, I see what your saying. I have my desktop set to have only one screen already, but I went and got launcherpro cause of its features. But yea I downloaded a few pictures before that were 480x800 and it had the black bars on the sides but when I set it, it cuts off the head and feet, 960x800 however does not, it only cuts just a little off the sides. I'm guessing now that the picture is to wide and I wanted to know if I could make a picture keep its height and change its width. I don't know maybe keep the height from the 960x800 setup and the width from the 480x800 setup if that's possible.
My friends, friend has his set up so that when he sets a wallpaper it gives him the option to set as is, to crop, and i think the other one was to cut it. I don't know if its a application or if its the firmware (like cyanogen i mean) he uses, I would ask but he lives very far a few cities over. I have been combing the internet for this app or whatever, and I'm fairly new to android phones, but I got a pretty good history with computers so that definitely helps. But this one seems to be a common problem with a somewhat easy fix. Any ideas?
Are you sure you didn't mix up the 2 sizes lol. 960x800, and not 800x960. Not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I've done that before using Photoshop.
Is there a way to, turning off wallpaper scrolling, set a wallpaper using portrait-oriention without having to use the cropping tool? The image I want isn't exactly setup for landscape...nor do I get the entire thing. It's kind of annoying. Any other device would just set it on it's own without having to crop it to a completely different size...
If you're using launcher pro, under appearance settings. As for no landscape, I'm not sure, other than to turn the whole feature off.
This epic reply brought to you by none other than my roxx'd out Evo.
The only ways I've found to do so is to use Multi-Picture Live Wallpaper or edit the image and turn off wallpaper scrolling if you're using a home replacement app.
For Multi-Picture LWP, go to common settings and select the image you want to use - for best results have the image sized at 480*800. If it's smaller it will look bad, and if it's larger it may also look pixelated and the app may only show a portion of the photo depending on what your settings are. Don't set any individual settings.
If you're using a home replacement that allows for turning wallpaper scrolling off, you can use Photoshop, Gimp, or another editing software to center the image. First crop/resize the image so it's 480*800. Then you will need to add 240 pixels to each side (left and right). In Photoshop, I do this by adjusting the canvas size (it's under "image", I think).
If you want to do it the second way, but don't have the software/knowledge to do so, you can send me the image & I'll do it for you. If you want to do it yourself, Gimp is a great free photo-editing software.
(from... Evo/MIUI/Tapatalk)
I find the dimmest screen toggle still too bright. I find it embarrassing to use in dark public spaces.
Is there a way to dim the screen even more?
Download the screen filter app from the play store. Literally puts a filter effect on the screen to make it appear darker making it much easier to use in the dark.
Yes its possible to take the screen much lower, but we have to edit the framework. Nobody had done this mod yet for some reason.
CM9 has the ability to change the screen lowest settings built in
B97 said:
Download the screen filter app from the play store. Literally puts a filter effect on the screen to make it appear darker making it much easier to use in the dark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. I use Screen Filter also, it's uber handy for reading at night when the light seems too bright. If you've got hardkeys like I had on my Desire, you can even turn them off.
i wrote a tutorial on how you can mod the frameworks apk. it's very easy and you can change the brightness levels to anything you want. here's the thread
screen filter only puts a transparent layer on the screen and messes with the colors. modding the frameworks will lower default brightness to any level you want. you can raise it too if you like.
Thanks for all the ideas. I went with the easiest one, Screen Filter.
AOKP also has an option to reduce screen brightness...
dynamicpda said:
Thanks for all the ideas. I went with the easiest one, Screen Filter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good man!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
neotekz said:
i wrote a tutorial on how you can mod the frameworks apk. it's very easy and you can change the brightness levels to anything you want. here's the thread
screen filter only puts a transparent layer on the screen and messes with the colors. modding the frameworks will lower default brightness to any level you want. you can raise it too if you like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great work, I've been wondering why nobody did this mod yet for the nexus. I made that same mod on my atrix, using the sgs2 thread as well. But I've been too lazy to do it for nexus.
The above mod is the best option. Screen filter doesn't achieve the same results. The above mod reduces power draw as well when on the lower brightness setting of 5 or so. Screen filter just hides the higher brightness but has same power draw.
RogerPodacter said:
Great work, I've been wondering why nobody did this mod yet for the nexus. I made that same mod on my atrix, using the sgs2 thread as well. But I've been too lazy to do it for nexus.
The above mod is the best option. Screen filter doesn't achieve the same results. The above mod reduces power draw as well when on the lower brightness setting of 5 or so. Screen filter just hides the higher brightness but has same power draw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be correct for back-lit screens. For the Galaxy Nexus screen, though, Screen Filter does help reducing power draw as a darker screen content = lower brightness.
I used to use SF for quite a while until I got fed up of it causing stutters to most animations. After thorough examination I concluded that the Nexus's GPU is the culprit. For some reason it just doesn't like multiple graphics being updated at once. Modding the overlay XML allows it to run at full speed.
Can anyone confirm the same reduced framerate issue?. It's also the reason why some ROMs include a setting to remove the navigation buttons glow. I tested with CM9 on the SGS2 and experienced none of the stutters in cases where the GN would. Another example: sliding between sections (comments, ralated, etc.) in YouTube is laggy iff the video is playing.
fnf said:
That would be correct for back-lit screens. For the Galaxy Nexus screen, though, Screen Filter does help reducing power draw as a darker screen content = lower brightness.
I used to use SF for quite a while until I got fed up of it causing stutters to most animations. After thorough examination I concluded that the Nexus's GPU is the culprit. For some reason it just doesn't like multiple graphics being updated at once. Modding the overlay XML allows it to run at full speed.
Can anyone confirm the same reduced framerate issue?. It's also the reason why some ROMs include a setting to remove the navigation buttons glow. I tested with CM9 on the SGS2 and experienced none of the stutters in cases where the GN would. Another example: sliding between sections (comments, ralated, etc.) in YouTube is laggy iff the video is playing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, GPU just isn't good enough. I hate the lag with the button glow animations on!
I use an app called root dim, it's really useful. Let's you use a brightness level of 1, which is really quite dim. Free, too.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Remoteconcern said:
Agreed, GPU just isn't good enough. I hate the lag with the button glow animations on!
I use an app called root dim, it's really useful. Let's you use a brightness level of 1, which is really quite dim. Free, too.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip, on the Galaxy Nexus it's possible to set the brightness to 0 by writing to /sys/class/backlight/*/brightness but the brightness is checked and reset to the minimum (default 10) every time the screen is turned on. I guess Root Dim works to the same effect so it runs as a system service. Still, it'd be an awesome addition for people who haven't bothered to mod.
fnf said:
That would be correct for back-lit screens. For the Galaxy Nexus screen, though, Screen Filter does help reducing power draw as a darker screen content = lower brightness.
I used to use SF for quite a while until I got fed up of it causing stutters to most animations. After thorough examination I concluded that the Nexus's GPU is the culprit. For some reason it just doesn't like multiple graphics being updated at once. Modding the overlay XML allows it to run at full speed.
Can anyone confirm the same reduced framerate issue?. It's also the reason why some ROMs include a setting to remove the navigation buttons glow. I tested with CM9 on the SGS2 and experienced none of the stutters in cases where the GN would. Another example: sliding between sections (comments, ralated, etc.) in YouTube is laggy iff the video is playing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen filter may reduce power. But amoled screens save power with lower brightness. There is no difference between lcd vs led on this issue. And modifying the framework to bring min brightness down to 5 rather than 15 saves much more power than screen filter. Its no contest. This isn't different from lcd in this case.
---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 PM ----------
fnf said:
Thanks for the tip, on the Galaxy Nexus it's possible to set the brightness to 0 by writing to /sys/class/backlight/*/brightness but the brightness is checked and reset to the minimum (default 10) every time the screen is turned on. I guess Root Dim works to the same effect so it runs as a system service. Still, it'd be an awesome addition for people who haven't bothered to mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes we can write to that sysfs file, but it gets reset. The mod to the frameworks incorporates that backlight file so its now able to go down to 1, 2, 5, or whatever you want. It makes it now stock, so you are no longer capped at 10 (actually I think 15 is the cap I see). But that mod is just removing this cap and making it lower to whatever you want. Stock.
So no extra app is needed. No additional tweak. It now makes the stock brightness able to go down to 1 by itself whenever it needs.
Hi all, please see the below thread. Only sharing the info as this was posted on the Verizon N4 forum.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-verizon/general/root-want-to-modify-dpi-t2960644
Hope this helps...
As indicated below some touchwiz native apps are affected.
List of known affected applications by changing DPI settings:
S-View (for S-View covers -- slightly misaligned but functional)
Touchwiz Stock Dialer (slightly misaligned but functional -- other non-stock options exist such as Hangouts or ExDialer)
Fingerprint lockscreen (arrow pointing to finger print scanner off center)
Exchange email (stock Samsung Email)
Stock Camera App
Just FYI to get some easy download links:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-verizon/general/root-want-to-modify-dpi-t2960644
Enable USB debugging on yer phone
-> http://www.mediafire.com/download/a4hd8y0c1iakysk/Samsung-Usb-Driver-v1.5.49.0.exe
Samsung USB drivers you'll need installed
-> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=48915118#post48915118
ADB / Fastboot installer
navigate to C:\adb\ and then run the command they give in the thread
adb shell wm density 540
(not confirmation will be sent but your phone should prompt you to 'allow' your computer to send adb commands to it.).
Restart phone
DPI settings are now at 540. original DPI settings are 640 BTW
imnoob55 said:
Hi all, please see the below thread. Only sharing the info as this was posted on the Verizon N4 forum.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-verizon/general/root-want-to-modify-dpi-t2960644
Hope this helps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I came across that thread a few hours ago. It's pretty neat to be able to drop the density and make more use of display space (could even drop it down to 384 and make it look more like a tablet), but it has its problems. Samsung apps (Dialer, camera, S Note, S-View, etc) will lose their screen alignment and/or only cover a portion of the screen when altering the density. Finding an alternate dialer was easy enough, but I'm having trouble finding a camera app similar to stock in quality, and was unsuccessful at replacing the S-View...
redphazon said:
I came across that thread a few hours ago. It's pretty neat to be able to drop the density and make more use of display space (could even drop it down to 384 and make it look more like a tablet), but it has its problems. Samsung apps (Dialer, camera, S Note, S-View, etc) will lose their screen alignment and/or only cover a portion of the screen when altering the density. Finding an alternate dialer was easy enough, but I'm having trouble finding a camera app similar to stock in quality, and was unsuccessful at replacing the S-View...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup unfortunately that is a side-effect of doing this. Only way to do it that I am aware of conventionally would be via xposed or loading in custom TW apps, both not possible. Hangout dialer works well, for this. TW stock browser is not affected. My S-Note is not affected either, too. Dialer and S-View are (not unusable, they just are not center-aligned any longer as their height/width are set on static widths rather than proportional % when Samsung set up the layout.) Maybe they'll change that in L.
BTW I use Nova for launcher and Hangouts as my dialer. I do use an s-view case, though, which is of course impacted.
imnoob55 said:
Yup unfortunately that is a side-effect of doing this. Only way to do it that I am aware of conventionally would be via xposed or loading in custom TW apps, both not possible. Hangout dialer works well, for this. TW stock browser is not affected. My S-Note is not affected either, too. Dialer and S-View are (not unusable, they just are not center-aligned any longer as their height/width are set on static widths rather than proportional % when Samsung set up the layout.) Maybe they'll change that in L.
BTW I use Nova for launcher and Hangouts as my dialer. I do use an s-view case, though, which is of course impacted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also using Nova Launcher. I did download ExDialer at first, but I went to Hangouts Dialer instead since ExDialer has a trial period and costs money.
S Note is largely unaffected yes, but when you open the camera for copying documents, the square used for aligning the camera with the document is off-center. It doesn't seem to hurt functionality in any way, though. Oddly enough, the camera when used in S Note is fullscreen...
As far as S-View goes, I'm thinking about removing the flip cover. S-View is nice, but I'm always trying to not get smudges on the cover screen on top of the phone display, so the cover is a little bit cumbersome to me when holding it. Seeing how much better the phone looks at a lower density makes me lean even closer to just getting rid of it. That leaves me with just the camera replacement...
Exchange email is also broken... when you reply to an email, the screen font is set to eleventybillion.
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Sent with my Galaxy Note 4
Can anyone confirm if this impacts the play store? Typically changing the dpi on the whole device would prevent the play store from downloading some apps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA Free mobile app
jfenton78 said:
Can anyone confirm if this impacts the play store? Typically changing the dpi on the whole device would prevent the play store from downloading some apps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen any problems with the Play Store yet, though I haven't been installing much of anything, either. The few apps I've installed so far gave me no trouble.
Also, just found out that the stock camera has no problems with accurate button detection when the phone is turned sideways for landscape rotation, though it's still not fullscreen. You have to guess where the buttons are on the screen in portrait when the density is changed.
Couple of tips:
if you get an error about the device being offline make sure you've got the current ADB installed. The link provided for the adb and fastboot didn't work for me because the file didn't install. The program is just an auto run zip file. you can open with 7-zip and just extract the adb files.
also if you get an error about the device being unauthorized you must select no action on the windows pop up and always perform this action. the phone should then get a pop up with the RSA key number and ask you to authorize. hope this helps.
540 DPI is pretty nice.
I was okay with the dialer and lockscreen, but the camera made me go back to 640. In vertical shooting mode, the touch points for all the icons, including the shutter button, is misaligned and is very annoying. What a shame as 540 looked AWESOME.
cj00ta said:
Exchange email is also broken... when you reply to an email, the screen font is set to eleventybillion.
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Sent with my Galaxy Note 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Just added to the top thread under impacted apps
Does this effectively change the resolution? I'm curious if lowering the DPI would give positive improvement to high-end game performance. Can anyone shed some light here?
Conkrete said:
Does this effectively change the resolution? I'm curious if lowering the DPI would give positive improvement to high-end game performance. Can anyone shed some light here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't change the resolution. What it changes is the drawing size of on-screen content which is directly from the 'dpi setting' of the phone.
It's a little complicated to explain but this is how it works;
The phone's default screen density (DPI) setting 640, this is done because that's how many dots per inch of the physical screen there is (a phone of similar screen size would have a similar dpi). This value is stored in your phone's build.prop and is read by numerous applications, it might not match exactly the 'real' dpi of the screen but its normally very close to it.
By changing it lower in dpi you're instructing to applications you actually have a smaller screen size, thus to fit content (i.e words not being HUGE on a small screen) content is drawn to that dpi setting you're providing in build.prop.
Now to go into why we have certain issues when changing the dpi.
This is basically due to how the app did its layout sizing (do I base content on "actual size" of the screen-size or do I base it on "actual density" of the screen density in build.prop? Most apps, since they're targeting to be used with dozens of devices of all sorts of different sizes, will be designed where the layout of content is dependent upon dpi. A layout would be I want a rectangular box on the bottom that has height 10px and width 100%, so that effectively means the width is based on the proportion of the screen size (the OS controls this, its just a matter of scaling). This is why you once had 5 items to show now has 8 items to show in a listbox. The size of the listbox in this case would be based on actual density while the content (text etc.) inside would be based on actual size (scaling I would think is limited to a min/max actual size for text).
Samsung can get away with this on their stock apps because in their mind when they build their roms they are only going to be used on that specific device. They're starting to go away from this, however, and are starting to make their layouts more typical that of a normal application. You have somewhat less control of the layout going from actual size to actual density.
*keep in mind you can actually set parameters for both. Such as if I wanted something to be 10% in width but only up to 2.5 inches in actual size this effectively means that it will scale until it reaches 2.5" and then scale no longer.
I hope that makes sense. Resolution really doesn't have a role at all in this, you're always at the same resolution (4K) and this is handled by the lower-level kernel and GPU firmware. I don't think there's a way to change this at the app layer but than again I have really no background in android development.
*please if anything comes off as inaccurate please point out, I am from a XAML/.NET development background and linux/unix embedded systems and really I focused on back-end/databases/services and not really front-endy stuff. This is how it is handled in XAML though and I have seen android uses the same principals.
imnoob55 said:
It doesn't change the resolution. What it changes is the drawing size of on-screen content which is directly from the 'dpi setting' of the phone.
It's a little complicated to explain but this is how it works;
The phone's default screen density (DPI) setting 640, this is done because that's how many dots per inch of the physical screen there is (a phone of similar screen size would have a similar dpi). This value is stored in your phone's build.prop and is read by numerous applications, it might not match exactly the 'real' dpi of the screen but its normally very close to it.
By changing it lower in dpi you're instructing to applications you actually have a smaller screen size, thus to fit content (i.e words not being HUGE on a small screen) content is drawn to that dpi setting you're providing in build.prop.
Now to go into why we have certain issues when changing the dpi.
This is basically due to how the app did its layout sizing (do I base content on "actual size" of the screen-size or do I base it on "actual density" of the screen density in build.prop? Most apps, since they're targeting to be used with dozens of devices of all sorts of different sizes, will be designed where the layout of content is dependent upon dpi. A layout would be I want a rectangular box on the bottom that has height 10px and width 100%, so that effectively means the width is based on the proportion of the screen size (the OS controls this, its just a matter of scaling). This is why you once had 5 items to show now has 8 items to show in a listbox. The size of the listbox in this case would be based on actual density while the content (text etc.) inside would be based on actual size (scaling I would think is limited to a min/max actual size for text).
Samsung can get away with this on their stock apps because in their mind when they build their roms they are only going to be used on that specific device. They're starting to go away from this, however, and are starting to make their layouts more typical that of a normal application. You have somewhat less control of the layout going from actual size to actual density.
*keep in mind you can actually set parameters for both. Such as if I wanted something to be 10% in width but only up to 2.5 inches in actual size this effectively means that it will scale until it reaches 2.5" and then scale no longer.
I hope that makes sense. Resolution really doesn't have a role at all in this, you're always at the same resolution (4K) and this is handled by the lower-level kernel and GPU firmware. I don't think there's a way to change this at the app layer but than again I have really no background in android development.
*please if anything comes off as inaccurate please point out, I am from a XAML/.NET development background and linux/unix embedded systems and really I focused on back-end/databases/services and not really front-endy stuff. This is how it is handled in XAML though and I have seen android uses the same principals.
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Extremely helpful and great info. Possibly the best response I've received from XDA. Thank you for the info. I have found a couple root apps that claim to change resolution but I've been hoping to find a non-root alternative.