WVGA definition in Android?

[anand b]

Hi,

WVGA can refer to displays of the following resolutions:
800x480 or 854x480 or 864x480

Can you please clarify what is the resolution that Android refers to?
I understand that the support for WVGA is in Android roadmap post Q1 09.

Thanks,
Anand

[Dave Sparks]

We are moving to a density independent pixel representation, so the
specific screen resolution is irrelevant.

[Dianne Hackborn]

I'd like to qualify that a little -- this work is to introduce support for different densities in the system, targeting only QVGA and WVGA screens that are approximately the same physical size as the G1's screen.  This will not add support for larger WVGA screens that are the same density as the G1's screen but physically larger.  We also have not decided yet on exactly what WVGA resolution(s) may be officially supported, though my guess right now is that all of those should be.

--
Dianne Hackborn
Android framework engineer
hac...@android.com

Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support.  All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

There are quite a few precedents for situations with pixel counts that
are close to one another, and it'd be good if Android allowed some
fuzziness in the size "buckets" so that apps that are tuned for
certain screen sizes but don't rely on bitmaps so much that the value
matters to the pixel can adapt to those pixel counts.

Examples:
160*100 vs 160x102
176x208 vs 176x220
320x240 vs 352x240 vs 360x240
640x480 vs 702x480 vs 720x480
800x600 vs 832*624
1152x864 vs 1152x900 vs 1152x911
1280x960 vs 1280x1024
1280x720 vs 1366 x 768
1920x1080 vs 2048x1080

I'd say that 800x480 vs 848x480 vs 852x480 vs 854x480 vs 864x480 falls
in the same realm.

JBQ

--
Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru
Android Engineer, Google.

[Dianne Hackborn]

The focus of this work is density, not resolution.  We will be quantizing density into a few buckets (corresponding to the existing HVGA, adding QVGA and WVGA at the same size) which are supported by the platform.

It has always been the case that Android applications should not rely on an exact size of the screen, which is why we focus so heavily on layout managers and have actively discouraged people from using absolute positioning of widgets.

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

That all sounds good, thanks.

JBQ

[Al Sutton]

Given the recent announcement by Kogan is it worth putting effort into
trying to support QVGA?

From the -developers list it sounds like very few apps will have a
usable UI in QVGA, so maybe it should be dropped as an option?

Al.

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The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not
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subsidiaries.

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

Two points:

-Android 1.0, which is the one that Kogan must have been using, didn't
support QVGA in its built-in-apps nor did it have framework support to
help 3rd-party apps adapt to different densities. Fixing that is on
the roadmap.

-As for 3rd-party apps, it's potentially a chicken-and-egg issue: app
developers won't make their apps work in QVGA until there are devices
out there. Device manufacturers might wait until there's decent app
support o release QVGA devices. On top of that, both sides depend on
Android to provide an SDK and a platform with adequate support for the
various densities, which is on the roadmap.

Growing pains are a necessary part of growth, though. Otherwise,
pushing the reasoning further, we'd all be running Android 1.0 on the
G1 forever.

JBQ

[Al Sutton]

It's easy to allow HVGA apps to run on things with a resolution greater
than HVGA, but trying to down-scale any HVGA system to QVGA usually ends
up with mangled icons, unreadable text, and problems with layouts, so
I'd suggest unless it's a next to zero cost thing in terms of time
and/or money to do it's not worth adding support.

imho I think it's better to say it'll the result won't be worth the
effort than to put all the effort in only for it not to be used.

Al.

[Dave Sparks]

Thanks for clarifying, Dianne.

On Jan 16, 4:41 pm, "Dianne Hackborn" <hack...@android.com> wrote:
> I'd like to qualify that a little -- this work is to introduce support for
> different densities in the system, targeting only QVGA and WVGA screens that
> are approximately the same physical size as the G1's screen.  This will not
> add support for larger WVGA screens that are the same density as the G1's
> screen but physically larger.  We also have not decided yet on exactly what
> WVGA resolution(s) may be officially supported, though my guess right now is
> that all of those should be.
>

> On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Dave Sparks <davidspa...@android.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > We are moving to a density independent pixel representation, so the
> > specific screen resolution is irrelevant.
>
> > On Jan 16, 12:10 am, anand b <anand....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
>
> > >  WVGA can refer to displays of the following resolutions:
> > >    800x480 or 854x480 or 864x480
>
> > >  Can you please clarify what is the resolution that Android refers to?
> > >  I understand that the support for WVGA is in Android roadmap post Q1 09.
>
> > > Thanks,
> > > Anand
>
> --
> Dianne Hackborn
> Android framework engineer

> hack...@android.com

[Dianne Hackborn]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote:

Given the recent announcement by Kogan is it worth putting effort into
trying to support QVGA?

The work isn't being done for Kogan, so there is no reason for them to impact it.
 

From the -developers list it sounds like very few apps will have a
usable UI in QVGA, so maybe it should be dropped as an option?

How would they know?  Nobody has run an application on a version of the platform with actual QVGA support.  We intend that most existing applications will work decently on QVGA, and that is very much a goal of any such work we do on the platform.

[Al Sutton]

Dianne Hackborn wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com
> <mailto:a...@funkyandroid.com>> wrote:
>
> Given the recent announcement by Kogan is it worth putting effort into
> trying to support QVGA?
>
>
> The work isn't being done for Kogan, so there is no reason for them to
> impact it.

I think you missed my point; The only manufacturer who had announced a
QVGA device (i.e. Kogan) has abandoned shipping it claiming that "One of
the potential issues is the screen size and resolution", given this I
doubt anyone else is going to start design and manufacture of a QVGA
based device and so is it worth trying to support a resolution that
isn't going to be used?

>
>
> From the -developers list it sounds like very few apps will have a
> usable UI in QVGA, so maybe it should be dropped as an option?
>
>
> How would they know? Nobody has run an application on a version of
> the platform with actual QVGA support. We intend that most existing
> applications will work decently on QVGA, and that is very much a goal
> of any such work we do on the platform.
>

The emulator supports QVGA, so it's easy to see what an app would look
like in QVGA mode.

I had to make modifications to the AndAppStore client to include smaller
icons to make it work on a QVGA screen, and the comments on the thread
at
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/16f0dcece645c57/065ad77d39d8d336?lnk=gst&q=QVGA#065ad77d39d8d336
(particularly joshvs'), I think QVGA is something that many developers
may have already written off.

Al.

> --
> Dianne Hackborn
> Android framework engineer

> hac...@android.com <mailto:hac...@android.com>

[Dianne Hackborn]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 2:34 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote:

> The work isn't being done for Kogan, so there is no reason for them to

> impact it.

I think you missed my point; The only manufacturer who had announced a
QVGA device (i.e. Kogan) has abandoned shipping it claiming that "One of
the potential issues is the screen size and resolution", given this I
doubt anyone else is going to start design and manufacture of a QVGA
based device and so is it worth trying to support a resolution that
isn't going to be used?

By saying that the work wasn't being done for Kogan, one could probably assume that there are others interested in it. :)  The issue Kogan has with screen size and resolution is that the platform -currently- doesn't support the screen size and resolution they were using.
 

> How would they know?  Nobody has run an application on a version of
> the platform with actual QVGA support.  We intend that most existing
> applications will work decently on QVGA, and that is very much a goal
> of any such work we do on the platform.

The emulator supports QVGA, so it's easy to see what an app would look
like in QVGA mode.

No it isn't.  I think you are missing my point.  The platform currently DOES NOT SUPPORT QVGA.  Running the emulator with a QVGA screen gives you a nice demonstration of that.  The density work that is being done will address this.
 

I had to make modifications to the AndAppStore client to include smaller
icons to make it work on a QVGA screen, and the comments on the thread
at
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/16f0dcece645c57/065ad77d39d8d336?lnk=gst&q=QVGA#065ad77d39d8d336
(particularly joshvs'), I think QVGA is something that many developers
may have already written off.

As I already said, a key part of the density work on the roadmap is to allow existing applications to run on the new screen configurations.

The basic take-away here is: nobody should be making hardware to run Android that is anything besides HVGA, because that is the only resolution currently supported by the platform.  And no developers should be spending their time trying to make their apps run on anything besides HVGA, because the support for other screens is not yet there so the system won't behave correctly for them on anything else.

--
Dianne Hackborn
Android framework engineer
hac...@android.com

[Al Sutton]

As the emulator ships with QVGA skins and the documentation at
http://code.google.com/android/reference/emulator.html gives details
details of how to use them, the impression given by all of the
documentation seems to be that what you get from the emulator in QVGA
mode is what you should expect.

Maybe someone should update the docs and/or remove the skins from the
emulator if they are currently as useless as you say.

Al.

> hac...@android.com <mailto:hac...@android.com>

[Dianne Hackborn]

Sorry about the confusion.  The emulator supports pretty much any resolution you want, it's just that the current platform only support HVGA.