Re: [Devel] Hinter changes

[James H. Cloos Jr.]

>>>>> "Rayiner" == Rayiner Hashem <address@hidden> writes:

Rayiner> Part of this has to do with my setup: Postscript
Rayiner> fonts on a 133dpi screen. Standard TrueType hinting looks
Rayiner> absolutely terrible, because 1-pixel wide strokes are too
Rayiner> thin to be legible.  Also, what is the status of sub-pixel
Rayiner> rendering?

I also have a 133dpi laptop (not one the more recent 170° viewable
ones; mine is the previous generation).  On this lcd 1 pixel wide
strokes are optimal for legibility.  I do use:

<match target="font">
      <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"><const>rgb</const></edit>
</match>

in my ~/.fonts.conf.  The one pixel wide stems make the fonts
look just like the good bitmap fonts (such as the etl fonts:

-etl-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-*-*

or the 9x18.bdf font:

-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--18-120-100-100-c-90-*-*

except that the diagonals and curves are smoothed a bit by the
(sub-pixel) grayscaling.  The vertical and horizontal stems are
sharp white-black-white transitions.

OTOH, I did get to see what several ttf fonts look like w/o the
interpreter, and those will probably fit your needs quite well.

I find that Freetype's autohinter works better than the autohinter
and autoinstructer capabilities of most font creation software,
so it is better to force autohinting if the fonts are not hand
hinted/instructed.

.....

I just had a thought.  Are you using light text on a dark background?
fc/xft/render has some gamma-related issues rendering light on dark;
it works *much* better w/ dark on light.  I still find intructed
Lucida Sans Typewriter and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono to be readable
white on black, but they definitely look better autohinted with
that colour scheme.  (Based on turning on the Reverse Video in
xterm.)


Rayiner> Lastly, my fonts keep changing drastically with every
Rayiner> release of Freetype. Should this really be happening with
Rayiner> minor version number bumps, or am I the only one seeing such
Rayiner> changes?

I'm not seeing that, but I do mostly use instructed ttfs for UI,
even though I prefer type1 and cff otf for print.

-JimC