Pixi's Smaller Screen Isn't As Bad As You'd Think

Now that the Pixi has been announced to fit 320x400px (80 pixels shorter than the Pre), there have been a fair bit of questions raised, in regards to application compatibility.  You can all breath a sigh of release. Most will be unaffected.

As the WebOS is based off HTML, CSS and javascript, it is one of the most size-flexible operating systems out there.  Considering the only screen size difference is in its height, you can already see how a shorter screen functions by how the Pre's screen resizes when you get a notification; the extra content is just a scroll away.

Not all applications will be immune to issues in the resolution change, however. As it was pointed out on the Palm Developer Network blog, applications that take up the whole screen of the Pre, like games, will encounter issues and will need to be updated.

To aid developers, kesne on our forums has put together a list of tips on how to prepare applications to be compatible with the Pixi's shorter screen. Practical advice, like enabling the scene scroller, and keeping headers, images, and buttons at reasonable sizes, will help keep apps Pixi-ready.

Sure all this may sound good in theory, but how could one test applications when the Palm Pixi isn't due out for a few months? Easy! The emulator can be easily altered to work in 320x400px resolution. For Windows computers, go to C:/Users/<Your Username>/.VirtualBox/Machines/Palm Emulator (1.1.0.19)/ and open up "Palm Emulator (1.1.0.19).xml". Change the line:

<ExtraDataItem name="CustomVideoMode1" value="320x480x32"/>

to:

<ExtraDataItem name="CustomVideoMode1" value="320x400x32"/>

And then launch the emulator. It'll now show what you'd roughly see on the Pixi. Chances are Palm will update some CSS files for the Pixi to get things looking slightly better on the smaller screen, but this Pixi-esque emulator will definitely help developers with updating compatibility.  And in all honestly, this shorter WebOS emulator doesn't look half bad. Certainly bodes well for the Palm Pixi.