[R] Rgui and high DPI (e.g. 4K) monitors

[Brent]

Summary:

I need advice on how to simultaneously get crisp text and properly sized icons in Rgui on a modern monitor.



Background and details:

I have a new Dell Precision 7530 workstation laptop with a 15 inch 4K monitor running the latest (1903) build of Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.

I just installed the latest R (3.6.0) on it.

The sole problem is that Rgui's text and shortcut icons are blurrier than they ought to be.

Is this because Rgui fails to using new Windows 10 GUI APIs, and instead uses old legacy APIs that poorly support scaling?

I web searched this problem.  Many links mention to alter Windows 10's display scaling for R.  For example:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3fedsq/a_simple_solution_for_blurry_fonts_in_windows_10/

Motivated by that, I have done some experiments which I report below.  They partly work, but not completely, so I desire to learn of a full solution.

Initial steps:
    --find the shortcut that launches Rgui, for example
        C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\R\R x64 3.6.0
    --right click on that shortcut
    --select Properties --> Compatibility --> "Change high DPI settings"
        Override high DPI scaling behavior: check
        drop down menu: see discussion below

The drop down menu has 3 choices: Application, System, System (Enhanced).

If I  choose Application:
    --Good: ALL the text (e.g. the menus, inside R console) is PERFECT!
    --BAD: the icons are so small that they are utterly unreadable; I just measured them as ~2 mm by 2 mm!

If I  choose System:
    --seems to be the worst option, does nothing to help

If I  choose System (Enhanced):
    --Good: the text for the menus is OK, the icons are OK
    --BAD: the text inside R console is blurry

I have gone with Application since I LOVE the crisp text and do not use those icons too much.

But there should be no compromise: Rgui ought to display perfectly.

Anyone had success?



This email list's archives:

Apologies in advance if this question has been asked and answered many times already.

But know that before posting this, in addition to a normal web search, I tried to find prior discussions on this email list.

This is problematic.  The official site
    https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
says that the only ways which partly work are the GMANE interfaces and the Nabble one.

I got a Error 522 page from GMANE.

Nabble returned 2 hits for variations on the search terms "rgui high dpi 4k"
    http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Font-Size-for-View-under-Linux-td4746104.html
    http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Bug-report-problems-with-saving-plots-on-a-Windows-PC-with-4k-monitor-wrong-picture-size-td4752183.html
None are relevant here.