Resolution independent UI patent dissected by Cabel Sasser
The developer of Transmit (and composer of underground musical hit Buggy Saints Row) has done due diligence on Apple's patent application from December for a method of generating resolution-independent UI elements. If Apple is going to scale the Finder's descendants to work on hyper-resolution displays, this kind of tool would be essential.
Sasser's post gives a great intro to the importance of resolution independence (keeping UI elements smooth and silky even as more pixels are required to render them on denser displays) and explains what's cool about the patent application: Apple developer Mark Zimmer (inventor of Fractal Design's natural media drawing app Painter) has built a theme creation tool that actually works up buttons, scroll bars and other eye candy via a procedural description, instead of bunches of pixels. Want a higher resolution display? Boom -- the markup is run again with the denser target, and welcome the new hotness.
Cabel believes we'll be seeing the fruits of this labor real soon now. Must be later today!
