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Old 03-06-2006, 08:00 PM   #166
Franklin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frunktz
Nice idea!
But I cannot resolve some problems...
Anyway I think there is a little but in Freetype2 when it parse the MS Fonts with bytecode..little bug that Suse seems to have fix.
The bug is when you use Tahoma font..I see in 8pt..With that size try to look on some letters ('v', '8', '2', and other). For example in 'v' letter you can see a pixel in plus in the "intersection".

I think a solution of some problem is FORCE all apps (througth fonts.conf or local.conf) to use for example Tahoma in substitution of Sans/SansSerif..Is possible?

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/5927/schermata26pm.png
Took a look at the screenshot - menu fonts are fine. The issue you see, if I understand you correctly, is a problem (?) with Acrobat Reader in that the font used for the preferences screen is a sans serif that does not look too good without antialiasing. This font can't be changed - as far as I know. I just let it be. Got to pick your battles. How often do you set preferences?

As for the problems with 8 etc. in Tahoma, I have it too. Arial does not exhibit this at 8 point and, at this size, is very similar to Tahoma - slightly wider. It's an option. If I were using a spread sheet with many numbers, I might use Arial instead of Tahoma.
 
Old 03-07-2006, 01:50 PM   #167
Toods
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Here are a couple of images to show what my fonts look like:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...2001/Demo2.png

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...2001/Demo1.png

Bill.
 
Old 03-07-2006, 02:41 PM   #168
vrode
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faint fonts

My current msfonts (arial, verdana, tahoma, etc) screen output are thin and faint. Like to darken them.

My gnome font preference is set for font rendering->monochrome, smoothing->none and Hinting->full.Changing to any other setting blurs it.

My DPI is set for 96x96.


Any insight will be appreciated.


regards,
/virendra
 
Old 03-07-2006, 03:42 PM   #169
Toods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vrode
My current msfonts (arial, verdana, tahoma, etc) screen output are thin and faint. Like to darken them.---
Hi Vrode,

It's always difficult to understand what someone means when they try to describe font appearance without providing an image.

You describe the appearance as "thin and faint". What I always do when I am trying to sort out fonts appearance is to make a 'Print Screen', paste it into a drawing package and then magnify it to look at the pixel arrangement.

For example, see my enlargement of Arial 10pt in the image below:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...2001/Demo4.png
 
Old 03-07-2006, 04:38 PM   #170
vrode
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toods
Hi Vrode,

It's always difficult to understand what someone means when they try to describe font appearance without providing an image.

You describe the appearance as "thin and faint". What I always do when I am trying to sort out fonts appearance is to make a 'Print Screen', paste it into a drawing package and then magnify it to look at the pixel arrangement.

For example, see my enlargement of Arial 10pt in the image below:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...2001/Demo4.png
------------
Can I e-mail it you directly, sorry I don't have a place to post it

Basically the fonts appearance is in monochromo mode, really skinny.


regards,
/virendra
 
Old 03-08-2006, 02:34 PM   #171
Toods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vrode
------------
Can I e-mail it you directly, sorry I don't have a place to post it

Basically the fonts appearance is in monochromo mode, really skinny.
I have looked at the images that you emailed to me.

From what I can see, all the fonts are rendered just as they would be on windows XP or 2000. The 'skinny' appearance that you refer to is exactly as they are on Windows.

The font sizes are much bigger than on Windows. For example, the menu font that you have are Arial 11pt which is much larger than the Tahoma 8pt of Windows.

It seems that you have sorted all the configuration problems with getting Freetype to render the MS Truetype fonts. Really now it is for you to decide how you want them to appear.
 
Old 03-08-2006, 03:55 PM   #172
vrode
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That's what I was afraid of.

I'm thinking of going back to 1024x786 resolution as opposed to 1400x1050 which is what I'm used to working on :-)

Appreciate your time and patience!


regards,
/virendra
 
Old 03-14-2006, 04:17 AM   #173
Toods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vrode
--- I'm thinking of going back to 1024x786 resolution as opposed to 1400x1050 ---
After a lot of experimentation with my LCD display, I found that 1280x1024 resolution give an appearance most to my liking.

Regards,

Bill.
 
Old 03-20-2006, 04:17 PM   #174
rswwalker
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FreeType autohint bci anti-aliasing my observations

I have put in quite a bit of time looking at the different parts that make up the FreeType system and have made some observations to date.

As of version 2.1.10 I have noticed that FreeType's autohinter adds too many hints by default which when coupled with the anti-aliasing makes for larger fonts and a lot of the font decorations can be lost (serifs), not to mention that fonts are all a little bit wider and sometimes misshaped.

While the bytecode interpreter is pretty true to form, the anti-aliasing of the bytecode interpreted font sucks. The anti-aliaser I believe is tweaked out to function well with the auto-hinter's overly hinted fonts. Thus anti-aliased bytecode interpreted fonts (say that 10 times fast) look washed out and the anti-aliasing is so aggressive it messes up the kerning.

My approach to this is to take a little bit from both to make the best of the current state of things.

Code:
<!-- Set sane defaults -->
<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>true</bool></edit>
 <edit mode="assign" name="hinting"><bool>true</bool></edit>
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"><const>hintmedium</const></edit>
</match>

<!-- Lets do font matching for our high-quality ttf fonts -->
<match target="font">
 <test name="family" compare="eq" qual="any">
  <string>Anadale Mono</string>
  <string>Arial</string>
  <string>Courier New</string>
  <string>Georgia</string>
  <string>Impact</string>
  <string>Tahoma</string>
  <string>Times New Roman</string>
  <string>Verdana</string>
 </test>
 <!-- We should only do this if we are using Native/BCI hinting otherwise it is too ugly -->
 <test name="autohint" compare="eq"><bool>false</bool></test>
 <!-- Don't anti-alias from 7pt to 13pt, lucky numbers! -->
 <test name="size" compare="more"><double>6</double></test>
 <test name="size" compare="less"><double>14</double></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>false</bool></test>
</match>

<!-- Lets adjust the hinting based on weight -->
<!-- If the font is light we can do full hinting to get the best shape -->
<match target="font">
 <test name="weight" compare="less"><const>medium</const></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"><const>hintfull</const></edit>
</match>

<!-- If the font is heavy we can do slight hinting to get the best shape -->
<match target="font">
 <test name="weight" compare="more"><const>medium</const></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"><const>hintslight</const></edit>
</match>

<!-- If the font is Black or Poster lets just forget hints and seriously think about salads -->
<match target="font">
 <test name="weight" compare="more"><const>bold</const></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"><const>hintnone</const></edit>
</match>

<!-- This next one is your own personal pref, I don't use it, but many do -->
<-- Anti-Alias everything over medium weight -->
<!--
<match target="font">
 <test name="weight" compare="more"><const>medium</const></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>true</bool></edit>
</match>
-->

<!-- Now lets say if it's gonna be Anti-Aliased it's gonna be Auto-Hinted to maintain contrast, cause BCI is washed out -->
<match target="font">
 <test name="antialias" compare="eq"><bool>true</bool></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="autohint"><bool>true</bool></edit>
</match>
Still to add to the mix is family->generic font alias preference, and maybe some special spacing cases. I would probably add all the Japanese, Chinese and Korean fonts to the list of non-anti-aliased fonts for those point sizes. You may also want to disable hinting below 6pt.
 
Old 03-20-2006, 11:33 PM   #175
vrode
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What's your screen resolution (1024x768, 1400x1050), display size (14" or 15") and DPI set for? Also can you share snapshots of thunderbird, firefox and desktop?

BTW, is the above config example, local.conf or fonts.conf?

please advice.


regards,
/virendra
 
Old 03-22-2006, 04:41 PM   #176
rswwalker
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The setup I am running on is a 15" NEC LCD at 1024x768 24bit. The NEC (or FreeType) doesn't do sub-pixel rendering well on that display, too many color fringes, so I have to stick to the good old greyscale anti-aliasing. If it did do sub pixel rendering well I would have enabled it with the BCI to get that ClearType look, the auto-hinter gives a more Mac OS X look. The BCI greyscale anti-aliasing look is somewhere in between. The more I look at it though the better I like it, it can get quite fuzzy on some fonts though in the 7pt to 13pt range, so if you have good bytecode enabled fonts (ie Microsoft ones), disable anti-aliasing in that range for them.

The code snippets I attached can work in both local.conf or .fonts.conf. I have done a little more tinkering on that setup though, and discovered that in FreeType 2.1.10 the auto-hinter doesn't do as good a job as I first thought. Especially when rendering Italic fonts, it can drop out a lot of the glyph depending on the font. A good example on my system is Times New Roman 10pt-12pt the italic capital "C" is missing part of the top. So my advice would be to make sure your FreeType has the BCI enabled and use it throughout. Disable anti-aliasing on fonts from 7pt to 13pt and anti-alias everything else.

Which means commenting out the part about enabling autohinting if it is anti-aliased in my earlier post, like so:

Code:
<!--
<match target="font">
 <test name="antialias" compare="eq"><bool>true</bool></test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="autohint"><bool>true</bool></test>
</match>
-->
Just don't define anything relating to "autohint" either enabling or disabling it throughout your conf and if the BCI is compiled in then your fonts will use it and disable anti-aliasing between 7pt and 13pt (for the fonts listed in that section). If the BCI isn't compiled in in your distribution then you will get the standard auto-hinter setup and everything will be anti-aliased. A side effect is you know right away if your distribution has BCI or not and you can then re-compile FreeType with it turned on if it isn't.

I will try to get screen shots out there somehow, but I don't have a place to post them yet. I run in KDE, I just have never quite liked Gnome, don't know why, but it feels like it was put together with duct tape and bubble gum. I can get screenshots of Firefox and Thunderbird under KDE though.
 
Old 03-22-2006, 04:44 PM   #177
rswwalker
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Also I have the DPI set to 96dpi using the -dpi 96 option to X in the kdmrc file.

I might try using the dpi option I saw others using in their .conf files, since setting the X server's DPI to something other then the real DPI can skew image manipulation in graphic apps like Gimp or Krita.
 
Old 03-23-2006, 08:16 AM   #178
Toods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rswwalker
--- and discovered that in FreeType 2.1.10 the auto-hinter doesn't do as good a job as I first thought---
I understand what you say.

In my opinion there are 2 approaches to this as i have already stated earlier in this thread:

1.) To simulate as closely as possible to Windows 2000/XP the rendering of MS Truetype fonts. This would require the 'Byte Code Interpreter' enabled and would definitely require going back to Freetype version 2.1.9 because v2.1.10 has an acknowledged bug(s) which leads to wrong rendering of some fonts particularly Verdana Bold.

2.) To go for fully anti-aliased fonts like in OSX. To get beautiful AA fonts I think that it essential to again use Freetype version 2.1.9 and use the 'David Chester Smooth' patches which improve kerning and also anti-aliasing as this is applied differently to horizontal and vertical strokes.
 
Old 03-24-2006, 10:08 AM   #179
Toods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rswwalker
Also I have the DPI set to 96dpi using the -dpi 96 option to X in the kdmrc file.

I might try using the dpi option I saw others using in their .conf files, since setting the X server's DPI to something other then the real DPI can skew image manipulation in graphic apps like Gimp or Krita.
I think that the best place to initially set the DPI is in 'xorg.conf'. First you need to calculate the screen size that will give exactly '96dpi' for your monitor. In my case the relevant 'xorg.conf' entry is:
Code:
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "LG1715S"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     60.0
    DisplaySize     338 270
    Option          "DPMS" "true"
EndSection
You also need to make sure that the settings found when the monitor is probed are not used with this entry:
Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Nvidia"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Option         "IgnoreEDID" "true"
EndSection
Then I also put the '96 DPI' entry in my '.fonts.conf' file as shown earlier in this thread, but I am not sure that it is necessary.
 
Old 03-29-2006, 07:42 AM   #180
rswwalker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toods
I understand what you say.

In my opinion there are 2 approaches to this as i have already stated earlier in this thread:

1.) To simulate as closely as possible to Windows 2000/XP the rendering of MS Truetype fonts. This would require the 'Byte Code Interpreter' enabled and would definitely require going back to Freetype version 2.1.9 because v2.1.10 has an acknowledged bug(s) which leads to wrong rendering of some fonts particularly Verdana Bold.

2.) To go for fully anti-aliased fonts like in OSX. To get beautiful AA fonts I think that it essential to again use Freetype version 2.1.9 and use the 'David Chester Smooth' patches which improve kerning and also anti-aliasing as this is applied differently to horizontal and vertical strokes.
While I too understand your approach, sometimes you just can't go completely one way or another. For example in my installation I have the Microsoft Fonts installed and set as the default screen elements so they are anti-aliased or non-anti-aliased per my config, but I also have a large collection of Adobe Type 1 fonts that frankly look terrible non-anti-aliased, so I need to come up with a system where both sets of fonts would work. I think my config that uses non-anti-aliased for the Microsoft fonts only for the size range specified and only if the BCI is enabled otherwise to use anti-aliasing all the time for the autohinter, works for me. Therefore it anti-aliases everything else which works well since the Bitstream Vera/DejaVu fonts still don't have the perfect bytecode tables to make them look nice non-anti-aliased and the Type 1s just need anti-aliasing to look good.

As for your recommendation to use freetype 2.1.9 over 2.1.10, while I haven't seen the Verdana issue myself I downgraded to 2.1.9 (my distro default) just because I saw no real perceivable difference to justify having this extra library. I have also tried David Chester's "smooth" patch and found while it gave a little better kerning appearance it really blurred the anti-aliasing on my display.
 
  


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