Any way to resize simulator to match actual display size?

On my PC the simulator is much larger than the actual device, making font choices misleading. Any way around this? (Resizing the window just obscures parts.)

markdotai over 5 years ago

I think the simulator will display 1 pixel on a device as 1 pixel on your PC (if you use a magnifier app on your PC you can see this) - so the increased size will be due to the difference in the size of pixels between your PC display and the real device display.

This will sound silly (but I'm not intending it to be!) - in order to get the pixels on your PC display to appear to be the same size as your device display the easiest way to me seems to be:

Display the same test image on both your PC and real device
Hold the real device at normal viewing distance (e.g. as though looking at a watch on your wrist)
Keep holding the real device and move backwards from your PC display until both images appear to be the same size.

But I definitely agree with you that making font choices can be difficult. I still find custom fonts, icons etc can often look better or worse on a real device compared to viewing them in the simulator (presumably because of the hardware differences - like colors, contrast, brightness). I always have to test fonts on a real device before I'm happy to use them in a final version.

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago in reply to markdotai

The pixels on the sim are the same as on the actual device. The venu is 390x390 and the same in the sim. The va4s, 218x218, and the same in the sim.

One thing added recently is with the mouse pointer you can see the actual x/y of a pixel on the screen which can really help if you need to do some "pixel tuning".

Having the sim display the actual size of the real device would be a challenge, as on a smaller screen (say 15") vs a larger display (say 21") would be difficult, as would making it work in the different pc screen resolutions available on a single screen.

As far as "look", I think one of the bigger challenge is to see how colors look in the sim vs the real devices, but there's really nothing that can be done about that either. dark red on black may look OK in the sim, but bad on a real device for example.

markdotai over 5 years ago

Just had an interesting thought - the pixel density on phone screens is probably closer to the Garmin devices. So if you could use a phone as a secondary display on your PC maybe that could help!

A quick search turned up this page with 3 potential apps to try that: airmore.com/phone-as-pc-second-monitor.html - I've never tried any of them though.

Fellrnr over 5 years ago in reply to markdotai

That's a good suggestion; it certainly helps! I think the luminosity of my display is much higher than the watch, which also makes things tricky.

6436121 over 3 years ago

I found that if I go to the display settings and lower the screen resolution, then the simulator is larger, albeit more pixelated.

This works for me as I have multiple monitors, and I have to revert the simulator screen back to its normally higher resolution after I am done. It's a shame that it is not as easy as dragging the window.

5950044 over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58

at least garmin should support the full screen mode where the OS can do the mapping .. it is really shameful to see the whole application running in one corner of my new touch screen hi resolution laptop.. where I cant see anything, and i cant touch anything... after investing that much into a new laptop, I feel so cheated.. !!!