new developer - screen resolution question

[thekonger]

I just joined the Win Phone 8 developer program (prior iOS developer) and have some questions about phone resolution strategies. I am a casual developer and mainly make games. How does everyone target their graphics? Looking at the resolutions my first thought would be to develop for the largest aspect (768 ? 1280 15:9) and scale down graphics for 480 ? 800 15:9. Is that what most devs do? Also, how do you address 720 ? 1280 (16:9)? Thanks for any suggestions. Also feel free to leave any additional newbie dev tips.

One tip I have for people just switching to Windows 8 (this is my first primary-use Win 8 system) is to grab 'StartIsBack'. Cost $3 for 2 licenses and to me it's priceless. Once I can lock desktop mode after 8.1 this will be just like having a Win7/8 hybrid.

 

[stmav]

If you are using Windows 8 on a touchscreen, the tiles and flow are so intuitive and work well, why bog down with desktop? The tile interface works fine on non-touch as well once you learn the shortcuts and screen combinations.

 

[thekonger]

If you are using Windows 8 on a touchscreen, the tiles and flow are so intuitive and work well, why bog down with desktop? The tile interface works fine on non-touch as well once you learn the shortcuts and screen combinations.

My current system isn't a touchscreen. I upgraded my laptop (3 years old) and have a 22" external monitor. I have Win 8 on a touch tablet I use for NetFlix (attached to my big screen via HDMI) and browsing and the metro UI is fine for that, but when I do development I am a keyboard and mouse guy.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

I just joined the Win Phone 8 developer program (prior iOS developer) and have some questions about phone resolution strategies. I am a casual developer and mainly make games. How does everyone target their graphics? Looking at the resolutions my first thought would be to develop for the largest aspect (768 ? 1280 15:9) and scale down graphics for 480 ? 800 15:9. Is that what most devs do? Also, how do you address 720 ? 1280 (16:9)? Thanks for any suggestions. Also feel free to leave any additional newbie dev tips.

One tip I have for people just switching to Windows 8 (this is my first primary-use Win 8 system) is to grab 'StartIsBack'. Cost $3 for 2 licenses and to me it's priceless. Once I can lock desktop mode after 8.1 this will be just like having a Win7/8 hybrid.

For the rest of this thread, let's not go down the Win8 start menu button rabbit hole.

Anyway, I haven't really bothered to make graphics for my apps to suit a resolution higher than 480x800. I haven't had any complaints (that I know of) so far. It might be a good idea to remember that WP7 uses only the 480x800 resolution if you want to make a version of your app compatible with wp7 (along with wp8 version). To make things easier on yourself, you should check out Microsoft's iOS to Windows Phone programming guide (found at WindowsPhone7 - Porting). The guide is using the WP7 apis, but it's similar enough to wp8 that you shouldn't have any (real) problems).

 

[thekonger]

For the rest of this thread, let's not go down the Win8 start menu button rabbit hole.

Anyway, I haven't really bothered to make graphics for my apps to suit a resolution higher than 480x800. I haven't had any complaints (that I know of) so far. It might be a good idea to remember that WP7 uses only the 480x800 resolution if you want to make a version of your app compatible with wp7 (along with wp8 version). To make things easier on yourself, you should check out Microsoft's iOS to Windows Phone programming guide (found at WindowsPhone7 - Porting). The guide is using the WP7 apis, but it's similar enough to wp8 that you shouldn't have any (real) problems).

Interesting tip, thanks CTG. For the resolution issue I wish I had a newer laptop. Mine doesn't support virtualization so I can only test on my 920 device, which I believe is 480x800. I'd love to be able to see how it looks in the emulator at various resolutions.

 

[thekonger]

Yoink, just found the 920 is 768 ? 1280. So I can test graphics at the higher res but not see what it would display at at lower res. I may try to do 480x800 and if it looks good on my 920 go with that.