Mimic/emulate a specific screen resolution for sizing WinForms?

Question

I am currently developing a Winforms Application that will run on a very specific tablet PC.

My development environment uses dual-17" monitors which are far bigger than the tablet screen size of 10.4" (1024x768).

Due to the purchasing department at my company the delivery of the tablet will not be until well into the design cycle.

Is it possible to mimic the tablet size so that I can adjust my forms to match?

Answer 1

You have couple of options:

• set one of your screens to the tablet resolution. You might need to move your taskbar to that screen to get the proper-sized workspace.
• install Virtual PC and create a VM with the tablet resolution.
• set your main form size explicitly to the tablet PC resolution. For best results size it to the proper workspace size, not the desktop size.

Note that your form will have to still be relatively flexible, since users might configure their taskbar to be at a different position, or different size, thus affecting the available workspace for your app.