Re: [ft] Enabling Subpixel Rendering On freetype-2.7.1

[Gordon Dickens]

Hi Werner,

Thanks for the reply.

I am running KDE Plasma 5 on OpenSUSE 42.2 and I have been enabling 
subpixel rendering like this for the past 6 years since 2011 with many 
versions of freetype2 and the fonts have always been rendered the same 
regardless of the version of freetype2 that I was using..  Then, with 
freetype-2.7.1 the font rendering changed. I believe that the rendering 
differences are most significant in GTK applications.  Again, I have 
been enabling subpixel rendering using a patch that sets the following 
in ftoption.h:

#define FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING

Attached are two images of the Arial font in Thunderbird rendered with 
freetype-2.6.3 and freetype-2.7.1 and the hintstyle set to hintmedium. 
You will see that the fonts with 2.7.1 are rendered more bolder with 
thicker fonts than with 2.6.3.  Again, over the last 6 years, I've never 
noticed the rendering change from one freetype version to another.  
However, either something changed with 2.7.1 or I am not doing something 
correctly.

In the past, prior to freetype-2.7.1, the fonts have been rendered 
identical to MS Clear Type for any given font and application such as 
the Arial font with Thunderbird. However, that is no longer the case as 
can be seen in the attachments.

Let me know if I need to provide any other details regarding my 
installation.

Thanks very much for your assistance.

Gordon




On 03/24/2017 02:01 PM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> >     I have successfully been enabling subpixel Rendering on previous
> >     versions of freetype2, most recently with version 2.6.3, with a
> >     patch that sets the following in ftoption.h:
> >
> >     #define FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING
> >
> >     However, when I upgrade to freetype-2.7.1, then the rendering is
> >     not the same and it doesn't look nearly as good.
> `Does not look nearly as good' is not something we can work with.
> Please give more details: Which font, which ppem, etc., etc.  Please
> also provide snapshot images.
>
> >     Are there other parameters that need changing or am I doing
> >     something wrong?
> Without more details I can't answer this.
>
>
>      Werner

Screenshot_Freetype2.6.3subpixelhinted1.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Screenshot_Freetype2.7.1subpixelhinted1.jpg
Description: JPEG image