kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Werner Almesberger <werner@...>]

Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> Let me call the "Minimum Recommended Screen Resolution" our MRSR.

I think there are two or three resolutions that matter for users:

1) the minimum resolution at which the program is still usable, no
matter how painful. E.g., below this resolution, GUI elements may
disappear, dialogs may exceed the screen size, and so on.

2) the resolution at and above which the program can be used for
regular work, even if it may be incovenient or may require more
experience (e.g., to learn hotkeys)

3) the resolution at and above which the program is really
convenient to use

I wonder if space permanently allocated to desktops also has to be
taken into account or if all of the major ones have a full screen
mode that gives the application the full physical resolution.

I think 1) should be as small as possible. It's not the resolution
people should work at, but they may find themselves in an exceptional
situation where their work environment is very constrained. It's nice
it your tools don't fail you even then.

I think it would be good if this resolution could be 640x480, which
seems to be the lowest common denominator for hardware that's likely
to run KiCad at all. I think requiring more than 800x600 as the bare
minimum would make KiCad a less flexible tool.

On Unix, you can work around some screen limitations also with a
virtual desktop, but I don't know if this is also true for other
environments.

2) and 3) are fuzzier and probably don't have a large impact on
development. I think 800x600 for 2) would be generous and 1024x768
should be acceptable for most people. For 3), the 1280x1024 you
proposed sound like a good limit to me.

- Werner