Re: What Size Screen Do You Design For?

Hal Rosser wrote:


"Hal Vaughan" <hal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:aUvfj.50$hS.15@xxxxxxxxxxx
Most of what I've done in Java is for a small business and any GUI had to
be
able to be run in a 640x480 screen because some of the software goes on
servers that are hooked up to cheap monitors that aren't used often.

Now I'm writing some simple programs and utilities that I can use and I'm
sure others will like. I'll be releasing them as open source so people
can
do what they like. I've realized that I don't have to be bound by the
640x480 screen size anymore, but I don't know what most people tend to
have
as a minimum now days.

For just simple stuff that I'd like for most people to be able to use,
what
can I count on as the smallest screen size in general use? I was
thinking 800x600, but a few friends have told me that most people now can
do larger than that now.

So what do you count on as a screen size your Java GUI programs can
expect?

Thanks!

Hal

I've had the same situations - but I had not heard of the Toolkit class at
that time.
You can size your gui depending on the screen size (and a whole lot more)
using this class.

I haven't seen the Toolkit class before. I see some useful methods, like
getScreenSize(), but overall, when I'm designing a window, I'm often trying
to fit the controls I need in it and I want to make sure they'll all fit in
the largest size window I can fit on a small screen. Then if the user has
a larger screen, it's easy to resize it and let Swing handle all that.

In other words, I design for the smallest possible size and figure it can be
expanded from there if the user wants.

But other than that, the screen resolution I use depends on the monitor
I'm hooked up to at the time, but is usually greater than 800x600 - at
this moment, its 1280 x 1024.

My guess is that 1280x1024 is about what I can count on most users having at
this point, but I do know of one or two people who are using very old
computers. I don't know if they're an exception or not.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Hal
.

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