Flexible UI for different aspect ratios?

Discussion in 'User Interface and HUD Modding' started by Dahie, Jul 17, 2012.

  1. Dahie

    Dahie Registered

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    We are currently in the process of creating a custom UI for CTDP's IFM 2009 mod.
    I'd like to adress one issue and see if we can pitch a fix for the future.

    The issue is, that on the desktop two aspect ratios are widespread by know, 4:3 and 16:9.
    At the moment rF2's UI definitions only allow for absolute coordinate definitions of the objects in the UI and the UI dimensions itself. If the aspect ratio of the display is different to the ratio on the defined UI, this gets stretched accordingly resulting in inferior results. Those can range from annoying to actually headache-inducing depending on the design.

    I'd like to know if there are already measures or techniques to avoid this issue. For example flexible spacers or max-size/min-size definitions for elements.
    Or is it possible to enfore letterboxing when the UI doesn't fit the aspect ratio?

    I can see that this is probably not the highest priority, but given that the menu is one of the first things a new users sees when opening the game, I can't understand that giving a distorted UI is the best option there is to this problem. :)
     

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