Re: Font issues

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

Lundberg, Johannes wrote:
> My system is Lubuntu (LXDE+Openbox) 14.04 and all gnustep stuff 
> installed with apt-get.
Which backend did you install? cairo?
> All non-gnustep apps have beautiful rendered fonts but gnustep apps' 
> fonts are so ugly it's a pain to use them. If this is the default I 
> can't image anyone (new user) wanna stay with the gnustep apps if 
> there are other alternatives.
>
> My assumption is that while non-gnustep apps' fonts are rendered with 
> gtk (cairo+pango) gnustep apps' fonts are rendered using cairo and/or X11.
Fonts look rendered quite nicely to me, if the correct font is used. To 
which font do you refer? System fonts or generally? Post some 
screenshots perhaps.

When using cairo, Applications look fine to me. E.g. menus, windows. I 
can just type fine in Ink and I an play around quite a bit with fonts in 
the font panel too. I'd say they look as fine as in other applications.
Perhaps anti-alias is a bit strong for my taste,  in menus ore in code 
shown in editors. You can however select a different font then.

The Art backend has an excellent font rendering, but you are restricted 
in using fonts you get font packages for or you need to generate them, 
it has received little care, but I still have one laptop where I test 
and use it since years and it works fine.

Fred may correct me, but we use "X11" directly only with the X11 backend 
and in that case font will look fine if you have the correct font, bad 
otherwise, but just as in other applications. If freetype is installed 
it will be used however and it looks as fine as t should.
> Since I haven't made any custom settings I assume this is default for 
> anyone installing gnustep on Lubuntu. I played with gnustep 
> preferences and selected other fonts but all look terrible.
That was my suggestion: Change them, with care, in SystemPreferences.
Or open Ink, start typing open the font panel and change fonts and see 
how they look like.
> 1) Is there any quick setting that I overlooked that can fix this?
>
> 2) If not, are there any plans or work in progress for a new font 
> backend? Like using Opal (CoreText?) when it is ready or Pango or a 
> totally new graphics backend like Skia that also handles fonts?
I think that either you have a problem with the ubuntu install or you 
have different expectations, since for me GS apps look quite fine.

Riccardo