Properly support per-monitor DPI awareness

The WinSCP 5.8 beta process claims to support per-monitor DPI awareness, but it does not actually support DPI scaling. When dragging WinSCP between monitors with different DPIs, the window is not resized in order to maintain physical dimensions nor does it scale its controls. This results in a comically large window when dragged from a high DPI screen to a low DPI screen.

From https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shellscalingapi/ne-shellscalingapi-process_dpi_awareness

Unlike the other awareness values, PROCESS_PER_MONITOR_DPI_AWARE should adapt to the display that it is on. This means that it is always rendered natively and is never scaled by the system. The responsibility is on the app to adjust the scale factor when receiving the WM_DPICHANGED message. Part of this message includes a suggested rect for the window. This suggestion is the current window scaled from the old DPI value to the new DPI value. For example, a window that is 500 by 500 on display A and moved to display B will receive a suggested window rect that is 1000 by 1000. If that same window is moved to display C, the suggested window rect attached to WM_DPICHANGED will be 1500 by 1500.

When an app receives WM_DPICHANGED, it is the app's responsibility to call SetWindowPos or similar AND scale the window's controls so that the window and its contents maintain the same physical size on monitors with different DPIs.

WinSCP should either scale its contents properly or declare itself system DPI aware only.

We are aware of this.

Runtime scaling is difficult to implement.

On the other hand, if we declare WinSCP not to be per-monitor DPI aware, Windows with scale the WinSCP windows pixel-wise when moving between monitors. Depending on DPI ratio between the monitors, this can be bad or good. If it is like 125% vs. 150%, pixel-wise scaling gives imho worse experience than no scaling. If it is like 100% vs. 200%, pixel-wise scaling is probably better than none. So it's not easy choice.

@martin: The problem is that with a wider delta between DPIs, the unscaled window becomes comically large and nearly unusable.

Compare these two videos showing a WinSCP window and a Chrome window being moved from a 4K, 200 DPI display to a regular 96 DPI display (apologies for the bad phone video):

WinSCP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOevWR-J5U

Chrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJ1NxRTqGk

I believe that claiming to support per-monitor DPI awareness when the application does not actually support DPI scaling is way worse than a little blurriness due to bitmap scaling. I expect my windows to maintain their physical size when moving them between monitors, and it's difficult to use the app when its contents are 2x or more larger than they should be physically.

In the first version of Windows 10, efforts to implement per-monitor DPI scaling were hindered because Windows did not actually scale the non-client area (titlebar etc) of the window, so even if you scale the contents of your window, the window chrome still looks ridiculous on low-DPI displays (see this ConEmu issue).

The good news is the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v1607) adds a new API: EnableNonClientDpiScaling(hWnd). Just call this once when the window is created and windows will automatically scale the non-client area for you. This means that you then need to listen for WM_DPICHANGED, use the suggested new pixel dimensions in lParam to call SetWindowPos (so that the window maintains the same physical [inch] dimensions on the new display), and then rescale the contents of the window.

Thanks for these details.

I'd like to join in here and ask the same. Please set the manifest to show WinSCP as not high-dpi aware so that it scales properly in my mixed-DPI environment.

In my case, my primary monitor is lower-res, so when I drag WinSCP to the 4K screen, it's the opposite of the above video: my window turns comically miniscule and unreadable. In physical size it looks like a size 3 font.

Here's the thing: I know you're trying to just provide a better experience, but please don't "lie" in the manifest. Let Windows do the blurry scaling. Then it's easy to turn off if someone wants to (shortcut properties has a checkbox for it). But when you "lie" in the manifest, there's no way for those who do want it to ever turn it on (there's no "force a program to scale even though manifest says it can do it itself" option).

So you actually can please everyone if you just set the manifest "properly". Hear me?

PS. This guy has a trick using DLL injection to provide a override by ignoring the dpi-awareness call. Interesting idea but I hope I can sway your minds instead :)

http://www.genericmaker.com/2014/05/force-dpi-scaling-on-windows.html

OK, the next major release will either properly support per-monitor DPI or won't include the flag.

Is there any update on this? I installed the latest version but still see very small font on my scaled screen in windows 10

It would be really important to get this. Using WinSCP with two monitors at different DPI settings seem impossible at the moment.

I'm working on this. Can you register on the forum, so that I can contact you, once I have anything to test?

@martin: Please ping me when you need something to test... or have a fix.
I have:

1. My Lenovo W541 laptop set to 200% at 2880 x 1620 (Recommended) [per the head IT guy in charge of procurement and configuration],
   
2. A Dell 21" monitor set to 1920 x 1080 at 100%, and a Visio 24" Monitor set to 125%.
   

If WinSCP comes up on the laptop it's ridiculously small. On either of the other monitors it is workable.

Thanks, Rick

I'm working on this atm.

Though there are problems, for which I'm not able to find a solution.

I posted one of them here:
Setting/scaling width of control scrollbars
(upvote, if you can).

But there are others (may post them later, once I give up trying to find a solution myself).

The only relevant answer I got so far suggests, that only the next update of Windows 10 will introduce the API necessary for implementing the scaling fully. So I may need to postpone the implementation.

This issue has been added to the tracker:
Issue 1521 – Per-monitor DPI awareness

I'm sending you an email with a development version of WinSCP to the address you have used to register on this forum.

While this issue is set to resolved (1521), I still get the transfer status window extremely wide, so it is not possible to see the status unless you scroll a lot to the right. See the scroll bar indicator in the lower left.

@redbeer: Would the problem resolve if you delete this registry key?
HKCU\Software\Martin Prikryl\WinSCP 2\Configuration\Interface\QueueView

Hi all,

I know this is an old post but I found the same issue to be happening to me.
I am currently using WinSCP 6.1.2 with a laptop monitor (2560 x 1600, 200% scale) and an external monitor (1080p, 100% scale) on Windows 11. I generally use WinSCP on the external monitor, but even if I open the program directly in the 1080p screen the program remembers the 200% scaling in its main window, and then somehow overcompensates for it whenever I open the text editor, making the text look way too small.
Is there any fix for this in the current stable release? Would downgrading to v5.10 help?

Thank you for your support

@fsil: In general it works, I haven't had a report like this for years. Please post some screenshots documenting the problem. Including screenshots of your Windows display settings. It would be better, if you start a new topic for this.