Re: [ft] iOS 7 system font Helvetica Neue horribly mis-hinted with FreeType 2.5.3

[Werner LEMBERG]

> So the conclusion so far is that FreeType may have a bug that shows
> up with the Apple iOS system font when
> TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING is not defined, but that
> TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING is a workaround for now.

I'm not sure that it counts as a bug.  To really check that, it would
be necessary to display the font on a Windows 98 box that don't have
ClearType.

> Werner, can you comment more about the description of that option as
> "experimental?"

`Experimental' means that the code has some rough edges (in
particular, it doesn't behave well for all fonts, and sometimes
produces results far inferior to Windows ClearType), and that it is
quite slow.  Its main author, Infinality, currently has no time to
work on it, and I have no time either.

> Should we be wary of using TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING in
> production code?

Well, the worst issue you can experience is bad good hinting...

> If so, any ideas about how to fix the font in the
> non-TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING code base?

As mentioned above, displaying the font on Windows 98 can decide that
(or maybe an environment like a font editor that uses the proper, old
Windows libraries).  It might also help to display the font on an old
Mac running an OS version before OS X.


    Werner