[eyesee]

APIs existed for fractional scale and assets in early Mac OS X versions (10.4 I think). I remember building out 1.25, 1.5 and 2x assets for an application at the time. These were never to be shipped to consumers for a few reasons.

There were intractable issues with window spanning across displays with different scale factors. Ultimately this was resolved by not allowing window spanning on the platform anymore.

[sgjohnson]

> Ultimately this was resolved by not allowing window spanning on the platform anymore.

You can still window span on macOS. You just have to disable the feature that gives every display its own workspaces.

Not that you’d ever want to do that. At least I can’t think of a single good reason why anyone would want this.

[legalcorrection]

This display spanning issue exists in Windows but I think Microsoft made the right trade off by just allowing that one thing to behave strangely. The other issue is pixel-based UIs that don’t fractional scale without blur, but at this point that doesn’t affect any software I use except little utility programs that I’m not staring at for very long anyway.

[wlesieutre]

Wasn’t there an early exploration of using vector UI elements some time around then? I have a vague recollection of it being found as a partly implemented feature.