New monitor makes all the difference!

[PDP-8]

Got a new monitor for the holidays and what a difference it makes - especially for the FLTK / FLWM scenario for TC / piCore running at non-native resolutions to bring things to a larger format for me.

Thought I'd throw my experience out there for anyone trying TC/piCore for the new years..

The FLTK/FLWM adjustments in size normally means appending my boot stanza in TC with a vga= option to a lower resolution (or running the Xvesa utility, exiting to a prompt, exiting the shell, and logging back in with tc as the user to see the changes), or manually editing the Raspberry Pi's /mnt/mmcblk0p1/config.txt and forcing a lower resolution that way.

Of course if you are running a full X11 setup at native resolution and are happy, this whole thing may not be desired.  Me, I *dig* the fltk / flwm defaults..

If the change is successful for you, you can bring things back into focus a little bit by cranking the contrast up further than usual - or using some other enhanced monitor setting that may be available.  If you didn't like the looks of a monitor feature at native resolution, try it again now that you are at a non-native res.

One handy tip is to install the Fifth-browser extension and look at it's icon!  It should appear 3-dimensional, and not 2D like most other icons.  You can see if you've cranked the contrast too far or not enough.

In my case, I got a nice holiday upgrade from a crappy 16-inch reflective joke, to another inexpensive 21-inch monitor but it was a nice step up.  HP 22cwa model.  Still low end consumer IPS but worlds above what I was running before.  Used one of the canned modes called HP+ or something like that, and it makes non-native resolutions look almost native.

And now FLTK rocks - the fifth browser icon is 3D, and even Dillo is usable to a degree, and of course window titles and sizes of the fltk apps is much more pleasing.  And no, I'm not running in 640x480 !! 

Moral - if you are running non-native resolutions like I am, don't forget to crank your contrast, or try out some of the other canned presets your monitor may have, even if you didn't like them before at the native resolution - it may be perfect for the res you are running now.