[HOWTO]Freetype subpixel font rendering - lcd monitors Pt 2

Message

mwhitlock · Post by **mwhitlock** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 9:13 pm

Continued from Part 1

justinkb wrote:ah right sorry I see now how that could be a confusing post and image. I mean the fonts near the icons in *TOOLBARS* are not as I like them. Compare in the image above the two 'Back' words. One in the dropdown menu and the one of firefox's toolbar. The last one is heavier and less pretty. aMule uses that less-pretty font through its entire interface (maybe more applications do).

The "Back" in the toolbar looks like it's been painted over a few times without erasing the background, thus compounding the anti-aliasing, darkening the edges, and generally muddying the appearance. That would be an issue in the application, not the font rendering stack.

justinkb · Post by **justinkb** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 10:36 am

so, all GTK+/Gnome applications use this wrong/broken way to render their toolbars? shouldn't i see this problem on everyone's screenshots then? but i don't, so i don't think that is it.

aronparsons · Post by **aronparsons** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:56 pm

http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/ge ... iew=markup

30 Dec 2008; Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
+files/cairo-1.2.4-lcd-cleartype-like.diff, metadata.xml,
cairo-1.8.6.ebuild:
add ClearType-style sub-pixel hinting patch from Arch Linux

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:19 am

aronparsons wrote:http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/ge ... iew=markup

30 Dec 2008; Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
+files/cairo-1.2.4-lcd-cleartype-like.diff, metadata.xml,
cairo-1.8.6.ebuild:
add ClearType-style sub-pixel hinting patch from Arch Linux

Is this patch already in devnull overlay? Or is this what newspr does already?

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:24 am

Does anybody else notice that apps consume more memory over a period of time while using newspr and full hinting? My firefox is at 450MB at this time. Grew from 250MB to start with.

Similar trend with thunderbird and konqueror. Is this because of newspr or is it because of subpixel full hinting or is subpixel full hinting triggering some bug in nvidia driver? I have always used medium hinting without subpixel hinting and never faced this issue before.

PaulBredbury · Post by **PaulBredbury** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:38 am

Arch Linux's cairo doesn't currently apply any patches. Look at the pkgbuild for any sign of "patch" - none

Click on "View SVN Entries", for those who can't see where to click. This is for version 1.8.6, as the current version.

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 5:06 pm

Code: Select all

*freetype-2.3.7-r1

  01 Jan 2009; Peter Alfredsen <loki_val@gentoo.org>
  +files/freetype-2.3.7-b.g.o-247104.patch,
  +files/freetype-2.3.7-b.g.o-253029.patch,
  +files/freetype-2.3.7-fix-incorrect-scaling.patch,
  +files/freetype-2.3.7-no-segfault-on-load_mac_face.patch,
  +freetype-2.3.7-r1.ebuild:
  Fix bug 247104, segfault in cffparse.c:361, bug 253029, missing letters in
  certain fonts, thanks to Andreas Turriff for the patch-pointer. Also
  import patches for alien bugs: http://bugs.debian.org/487101, segfault
  when building certain fonts and
  http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/index.php?23973 , incorrect scaling of
  certain fonts.

Are these patches applied in the devnull overlay?

PS: Happy New Year, folks!

yabbadabbadont · Post by **yabbadabbadont** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:16 pm

From looking at the ebuild, it doesn't look like it. I didn't bother to compare the contents of the various patch files though, so it may be that they are getting applied.

What is strange to me though, is that after syncing portage and the overlay today, I see the update, but the ubuntu USE flag is being filtered out somehow... at least that is how I'm interpreting the emerge output.

Code: Select all

[ebuild     U ] media-libs/freetype-2.3.7-r1 [2.3.7] USE="X -bindist -debug -doc -utils (-ubuntu%*)" 0 kB [1=>0]

Total: 1 package (1 upgrade), Size of downloads: 0 kB
Portage tree and overlays:
 [0] /usr/portage
 [1] /usr/portage/local/layman/devnull

Edit: I think I need to re-read the portage docs... I think this is telling me that portage is going to replace the overlay version with the one in the main tree. Time to check the keywords on everything I think.

Edit2: DOH! Duh... 2.3.7-r1 isn't in the overlay yet. /me slinks away in shame.

F0RR · Post by **F0RR** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:25 pm

Guys, need help. All bold capital O and Q and bold 0 look kinda ot the way they should (Verdana font).

Like this:
http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/3/1 ... c721af.png

It makes me crazy, 'cause everything else is ideal

Anybody?

/etc/fonts/local.conf:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>


<fontconfig>


	<match target="font">
		<edit name="autohint" mode="assign"><bool>false</bool></edit>
	</match>
	
    <match target="font">
        <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"><const>rgb</const></edit>
    </match>
	
	<match target="font">
		<edit name="antialias" mode="assign"><bool>true</bool></edit>
	</match>
	
	<match target="font">
		<edit name="hinting" mode="assign"><bool>true</bool></edit>
		<edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign"><const>hintfull</const></edit>
	</match>
	
    <match target="font">
		<test name="weight" compare="more_eq"><const>demibold</const></test>
        <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"><const>rgb</const></edit>
		<edit name="antialias" mode="assign"><bool>true</bool></edit>
		<edit name="autohint" mode="assign"><bool>false</bool></edit>
		<edit name="hinting" mode="assign"><bool>true</bool></edit>
		<edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign"><const>hintmedium</const></edit>
    </match>
	
		<match target="pattern" name="family">
		<test name="family" qual="any"><string>Courier</string></test>
		<edit name="family" mode="assign">

			<string>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</string>
		</edit>
	</match>

</fontconfig>

eselect fontconfig list:

Code: Select all

  [1]   10-antialias.conf *
  [2]   10-autohint.conf
  [3]   10-hinting.conf *
  [4]   10-hinting-full.conf *
  [5]   10-hinting-medium.conf
  [6]   10-hinting-slight.conf
  [7]   10-no-sub-pixel.conf
  [8]   10-sub-pixel-bgr.conf
  [9]   10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf *
  [10]  10-sub-pixel-vbgr.conf
  [11]  10-sub-pixel-vrgb.conf
  [12]  10-unhinted.conf *
  [13]  11-lcd-filter-lcddefault.conf *
  [14]  20-fix-globaladvance.conf *
  [15]  20-unhint-small-vera.conf
  [16]  25-unhint-nonlatin.conf
  [17]  30-metric-aliases.conf *
  [18]  30-replace-bitmap-fonts.conf
  [19]  30-urw-aliases.conf *
  [20]  40-nonlatin.conf *
  [21]  45-latin.conf *
  [22]  49-sansserif.conf *
  [23]  50-user.conf *
  [24]  51-local.conf *
  [25]  52-languageselector.conf *
  [26]  53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf *
  [27]  59-dejavu.conf *
  [28]  60-latin.conf *
  [29]  60-liberation.conf *
  [30]  65-fonts-persian.conf *
  [31]  65-khmer.conf
  [32]  65-nonlatin.conf *
  [33]  69-odofonts.conf
  [34]  69-unifont.conf *
  [35]  70-no-bitmaps.conf
  [36]  70-yes-bitmaps.conf *
  [37]  80-delicious.conf *
  [38]  80-odofonts-original.conf
  [39]  80-odofonts-simulate-MS-simplified-chinese.conf
  [40]  80-odofonts-simulate-MS-triditional-chinese.conf
  [41]  90-synthetic.conf *

Thanks

mwhitlock · Post by **mwhitlock** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 4:36 pm

F0RR wrote:Guys, need help. All bold capital O and Q and bold 0 look kinda ot the way they should (Verdana font).
It makes me crazy, 'cause everything else is ideal Anybody?

Are you using the autohinter or the BCI hinter? Your font glyphs will look much closer to their intended shapes if you turn off hinting entirely.

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:14 pm

F0RR wrote: eselect fontconfig list:
Code: Select all
  [2]   10-autohint.conf
  [12]  10-unhinted.conf *

both of those are reverse of what you want if you want to use hinting.

F0RR · Post by **F0RR** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:28 pm

mwhitlock
BCI hinter. Without hinting bold fonts look too blurry.

devsk
Both are overridden by /etc/fonts/local.conf. At least it seems so, because disabling 12 doesn't change anything. Everything looks wonderful, Os and 0s look ugly. Meh.

Evilguru · Post by **Evilguru** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:14 pm

The new version of Cairo in portage seems to have fixed the problems which I was having earlier. Great news!

However, in both GNOME and KDE OpenOffice.org and Evince/Okular do not make use of sub pixel rendering. For Openoffice.org it is the entire interface that is affected, with not even the GTK-style menus making use of it. For Evince/Okular it is just the PDF rendering. Does anyone know if there is a patch available for poppler/OpenOffice.org to correct this?

Regards, Freddie.

ocin · Post by **ocin** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 11:54 pm

devnull overlay is updated

There is a difference with cairo:
The "old" (that one with newspr) cairo is still in the overlay under x11-libs/cairo-1.8.6
The "new" (that one with clearype) is named x11-libs/cairo-1.8.6-r1

The "new" one does not apply cairo-04_lcd_filter.patch and cairo-respect-fontconfig.patch, it is using cairo-1.2.4-lcd-cleartype-like.diff instead.

Note: "cleartype", "newspr" and "ubuntu" useflags are enabled by default - you don't need to add them to package.use or use.conf

Please report any problems.

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:08 am

How does newspr differ from cleartype?
Is cleartype good enough replacement for newspr?

ocin · Post by **ocin** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:18 am

devsk wrote:How does newspr differ from cleartype?
Is cleartype good enough replacement for newspr?

I have to admit that I have not tested it yet.

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:32 am

Since the overlay cairo has both, how do we know whether newspr is being used or cleartype? How do we switch?

It looks like my fonts have gone for the worse after the upgrade. Man, I spent so much time to set it a certain way and I have to do it all over again.

yabbadabbadont · Post by **yabbadabbadont** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:50 am

devsk wrote:Since the overlay cairo has both, how do we know whether newspr is being used or cleartype? How do we switch?

It looks like my fonts have gone for the worse after the upgrade. Man, I spent so much time to set it a certain way and I have to do it all over again.

Simply downgrade to the previous version until such time as it all gets worked out.

ocin · Post by **ocin** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:52 pm

As I have posted..

If you don't want the cleartype patch but the other ones, simply mask cairo-1.8.6-r1

tbh I can't see any difference, my fonts are as nice as before :)

AaronPPC · Post by **AaronPPC** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:52 pm

devsk wrote:How does newspr differ from cleartype?
Is cleartype good enough replacement for newspr?

I just upgraded and I approve. Text, especially normal text, look even sharper and have a little more weight. Anti-aliasing is also excellent.

I thought newspr was going to be as good as it got, but I'm sold on cleartype.

mwhitlock · Post by **mwhitlock** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:59 pm

You guys, we really shouldn't be calling this "ClearType." The newspr patch was already controversial enough. The very reason it's not integrated into the mainline is due to fears over patent infringement. And now you want to call something "ClearType" straight out? That's suicidal.

ocin · Post by **ocin** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:23 pm

mwhitlock wrote:You guys, we really shouldn't be calling this "ClearType." The newspr patch was already controversial enough. The very reason it's not integrated into the mainline is due to fears over patent infringement. And now you want to call something "ClearType" straight out? That's suicidal.

Actually the patch is reads"cleartype-like". The useflag is called "cleartype" and thats how the gentoo guys named it.

mwhitlock · Post by **mwhitlock** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:30 pm

ocin wrote:Actually the patch is reads"cleartype-like". The useflag is called "cleartype" and thats how the gentoo guys named it.

I don't even think the word "ClearType" should be mentioned. It just invites scrutiny. But it's not my patch, so it's not my decision. I just don't want to lose it, because I love it!

devsk · Post by **devsk** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:59 pm

AaronPPC wrote:
devsk wrote:How does newspr differ from cleartype?
Is cleartype good enough replacement for newspr?
I just upgraded and I approve. Text, especially normal text, look even sharper and have a little more weight. Anti-aliasing is also excellent.

I thought newspr was going to be as good as it got, but I'm sold on cleartype.

which one do we get when both newspr and cleartype USE are defined?

Do we need to recompile libXft without newspr?

yabbadabbadont · Post by **yabbadabbadont** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 11:19 pm

The new cleartype patches seem to handle hinted bold fonts very well, while I had to disable it for bold fonts with newspr.

Edit: After browsing around the web for a while, I'm liking the new patches a lot better than the old ones. Everything is very sharp and clear now. (no pun intended)