More and more these very-very-high-resolution (UHD, Ultra-High-Density) notebook displays show up in my class rooms.These displays have 3100×1800 or even more pixels, making it great for watching high-resolution videos or for playing games (maybe?). But such a high-resolution makes many tools including Eclipse very hard to use, because the toolbar icons get so tiny that they are really hard to hit with a mouse cursor on Windows:
Eclipse Icons with UHD Display
Several students reported the issue. These tiny icons make Eclipse and other tools like Altium really hard to use :-(.
Thanks to the hint from yet another student, I can share a solution for that problem :-): Create a short cut for the application (or create one) and then edit the properties of it. In the ‘Compatibility’ tab there you should find a setting ‘Override high DPI scaling behaviour‘:
Override high DPI scaling behavior
On later Windows 10 the settings look a bit different:
Turn it on with the ‘System (Enhanced)’ option, and now the application icons are not scaled down and can be used normally.
Happy Enlarging 🙂
MCU on Eclipse 
Thank you Erich for covering this topic!
I’m just in for buying a new monitor (UHD) and you already save me some unwanted google searching.
Just a quick note here:
According to bugzilla be sure to have the latest 4.7.1 release since it has many fixes for HighDPI (highly recommended if you are on Mac or Linux like me).
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=421383
Daniel
PS.: You don’t need more than FHD resolution for competitive gaming (FPS).
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Hi Daniel,
glad to hear that potentially saved you some hours of searching. And thanks to the link plus the information about the gaming needs 🙂
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Hi There
I found a solution for the problem we discussed bilateral.
If there is no option for overriding the high DPI scaling behavior, and you just can check a field called “disable display scaling on high dpi settings”, there is another workaround to solve this issue:
https://community.perfectomobile.com/posts/1135007-solution-for-eclipse-with-high-resolution-laptops
Just do the instructions which are described to solve the problem with the Eclipse IDE, but instead of creating a file called “eclipse.exe.manifest”, name it “kinetis-design-studio.exe.manifest” or the IDE you are currently using. After that, the problem was solved for me 🙂
Diego
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Hi Diego,
excellent, thank you for sharing that solution!
Many thanks,
Erich
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I had this problem when I changed my default Windows 10 language from Eng to Italian, with Eclipse being installed when default language was Eng. Reverting Windows language to Eng and rebooting solverd the problem. I don’t know what’s happened, Windows rename some folders like C:\Users translating it in your default language and maybe this is causing problems.
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Hi Carlo,
interesting that a language change might trigger something like this. The C:\users folders are used to store global settings, so this could have created a side effect too.
Thanks for sharing!
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Hello Erich, I hope you are doing well.
I have Windows 10.
After selecting the properties for the Eclipse IDE,
I selected the COMPATIBILITY,
In the SETTINGS the override is not displayed.
It displays after selecting “Change high DPI settings”.
After doing so, another window opens.
In that window appears the “Change high DPI settings”.
Thank you for helping me with finding the option.
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Hi Brian,
thank you for that extra addition, very useful!
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Thank you much this helps..
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Glad to hear this was helpful for you!
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Thank you so much. This has really worked for me.
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thanks for this post. it was really helpful
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Good to hear that 🙂
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Thank you for the trick.. It worked
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Great!
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Any ideas how to fix this in Linux?
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You can reduce the DPI/Resolution of the display. A better solution would be to use a recent version of Eclipse which should solve the issue too.
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Changing a global setting for a single misbehaving app is not an option.
I used Eclipse for C++, Java and Perl until I googled for the best editor for Perl because the Perl extension was a joke, which lead me to VS Code.
This was in 2019 and since then, I use VS Code for everything and never looked back.
I just installed Eclipse 2022-12 on my Debian Bookworm with Gnome because I was curious how Eclipse has evolved, but with these tiny icons, it’s unusable.
This is from 2017, and even in 2023 the issue still persists. IMHO, Eclipse is dead.
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You do not have to change it in the global settings: there is a setting in the launching shortcut.
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hey there Erich, while this works like a charm, have you faced any issues with tabs like console, declaration, javadoc etc. disappearing when you hover your cursor over them? cuz I have, I am on a 15.6 inch 1920X1800 resolution screen do you have any workarounds?
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No, I have not seen anything like that. Are you using a recent version of Eclipse or an older one?
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