This post was originally supposed to be about why blu is faster with WPF, hence the tweet in the image, but after some digging, an equally unusual happening supplanted my original purpose for this post. If you decide to download blu, feel free to follow me as well; blu is a fine application if you don’t mind the occasional random crashing.

When Vista was being developed, the ability to magnify WPF vector graphics was included as an accessibility feature: vectors scaled in the magnifier on a WPF app would be easier to see and read, thus making this feature highly beneficial for those with diminishing sight. However, down the road, the WPF guys decided to scratch this feature in SP1.

Now, before I start, it’s best to know what vector graphics are. Outside the usual jokes about vectors thrown around during the Longhorn days when Aero Diamond managed to be a very persistent rumor, not many people actually understand the benefits of vector graphics over raster images (or, for that matter, what a vector graphic even is).

• Raster images are built pixel-by-pixel stacked like brickwork to generate an image. Because of this, raster images aren’t any good once you start zooming in and seeing the individual pixels. Generally, raster images are great for photographs simply because there’s far too much detail to be captured through points and lines, which brings us to vectors.
• Vector graphics, on the other hand, are built using a series of points connected together by way of instructions for various types of lines. Along with fill, effect, and other instructions generally used to make things look pretty, that’s really all a vector graphic is. Because of this, vector graphics are great for web graphics and other computer-generated things which don’t require photographic precision (Corporate logos are a great example).  Thanks to the fact that vector graphics are rendered upon request, they’re infinitely scalable; all you’re doing when scaling a vector graphic is scaling the math behind the scenes.

Here’s the thing: this feature was supposedly nixed from Vista SP1, but before I found out about this, I tried scaling blu in the magnifier. The text scaled just fine, while the rest of the app did not (though this second bit could just be due to how blu was designed). I tested this out in Windows 7 and found that vector scaling in the magnifier was also kept out of Windows 7, as you can see by the fact that the text in blu is not magnified in Windows 7’s magnifier.

Well, if you take a look at the leading image at the top of this post, you’ll clearly see that vector scaling works in Vista SP1 at least with text (the unmagnified app is to the left).

Anyone have any ideas? I should note that I am on Vista SP1, and I do have .net 3.5 installed.