id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc	guest	host
12816	Scale Mode reworked into Zoom function	bostjan		"
An essential feature for applications where host resolution cannot be changed at will.
Examples are old games and environments where fonts cannot be enlargened to be readable on modern displays with high resolutions.

It has been stated several times that VirtualBox shall not switch host resolution to match the guest. I guess we will have to do with scaling.

Current Scale Mode (as of VirtualBox 4.3.6) is not a proper fullscreen experience, as it retains the host window decorations and cannot truly occupy full screen. But it could be reworked a bit.

What I propose is that Scale Mode does not exist as a separate mode, but only as a specific setting.
The setting becomes active whenever the guest resolution and host resolution mismatch in both width and height. Host resolution here means the area which the host gives the guest to use, be it whole screen (fullscreen mode) or VM window client area in window mode.

Options:
A. 1:1 (note: black borders, as currently in 4.3.6)
B. Scale the image (with proper aspect ratio)

If user resizes the VM window or enters fullscreen, it works the same as until now:
VirtualBox tries to resize the guest desktop to achieve matching.
But if the resize fails, scaling is performed (according to user settings).

To put it simply: with scaling enabled, VirtualBox would scale the image in some of the current 'black border' situations.

Note that aspect ratio should be kept unchanged. I cannot imagine a single valid situation when you would want to distort the scaled image. Perhaps as an additional option to scale without regard to ratio, if someone needs it.

At this point, calling it ""Zoom"" begins to make more sense, as < 100% (reducing) would also be useful. A menu could be introduced to enable selecting specific zooms, similar to text editors, 100% option being most important to enable restoring the exact 1:1 pixel zoom.



VirtualBox already has a fullscreen mode and a working, but not ideal, Scale Mode. These should just be brought together.

Note: there are other fullscreen scaling/zooming enhancements proposed (like #10852), yes. But here I'm describing more precisely how the current Scale Mode can be reworked and become much more useful.

This enhancement is future-proof, as it can be further upgraded if required: adding additional modes, less-than-100% zooming (reducing), etc. It's about moving scaling from the current Scale Mode to where it belongs.
"	enhancement	new	other	VirtualBox 4.3.6				other	other