# HiDPI

HiDPI is simply a name for screens with a high resolution (High Dots Per Inch). The examples are Apple MacBooks labeled "with Retina", as well as some ultrabooks (e.g. Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro).

Not all software behaves well in high-resolution mode yet. Here are listed most common tweaks which make work on a HiDPI screen more pleasant.

Note: Gtk-3 3.10 and 3.12 require hidpi support in cairo, but the current release of cairo does not yet have this support. In order to enable full HiDPI support for Gtk-3.0 programs, you will have to build cairo-git then re-build gtk3 off of these newer cairo libraries.

## Desktop environments (DEs)

### GNOME 3

GNOME seems to be supporting HiDPI since 3.10. The support isn't particularly great, though.

For now to correctly enable HiDPI in GNOME you need latest version of cairo-git, and rebuild gtk with this version of cairo (this includes v3.12).

To enable HiDPI, set your interface factor scaling using gsettings:

       gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2

To reset this set scaling-factor to 1.

### XFCE

Go to Settings Editor (you can find it in Settings Manager), and change the DPI parameter in `xsettings` → `Xft`. The value of 180 seems to work well on Retina screens.

To enlarge icons in system tray, right-click on it (aim for empty space / top pixels / bottom pixels, so that you won't activate icons themselves) → “Properties” → set “Maximum icon size” to 32, 48 or 64.

## Browsers

### Firefox

Open Firefox advanced preferences page (`about:config`) and set parameter `layout.css.devPixelsPerPx` to `2` (or find the one that suits you better; `2` is a good choice for Retina screens).

### Chromium / Google Chrome

No official support yet. Watch this thread: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=143619. In the meantime try setting default page zoom level to 200% (although it isn't the most elegant solution).

For more adventurous users, Chromium can be recompiled using the -Denable_hidpi=1 flag to use experimental HiDPI scaling. Use the ABS to download the `chromium` package source, then edit the PKGBUILD file to add the flag. Note that this option will partially break context menus, but will optimize the interface and all webpages.

## Mail clients

### Thunderbird

See Firefox. To access `about:config`, go to Edit → Preferences → Advanced → Config editor.

## Skype

Skype is a Qt program, and needs to be configured separately. You can't change the DPI setting for it, but at least you can change font size. Install `extra/qt4` and run `qtconfig-qt4` to do it.

Category:

- Graphics