ugly mozilla gui font - X fonts

Message

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:17 pm

Hello.

Please look at my screenshot:
http://ext.nineab.com/jonas/mozfonthorror.png
What do you think?

Is that the way it should look?

I have no idea of how to change fonts used in mozillas gui. I have my windows XP fonts installed and available to X.
I have XFS started but don't know how to test if everything is as it should.

Can I force applications (ANY) to only use truetype fonts?

TenPin · Post by **TenPin** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:32 pm

If you have mozilla compiled with gtk1/2 then it should use the same fonts.

~/.gtkrc

Code: Select all

include "/usr/share/themes/Mist/gtk/gtkrc"

style "user-font"
{
  fontset="-monotype-arial-medium-r-normal-*-*-90-*-*-p-*-iso8859-15"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"

~/.gtkrc-2.0

Code: Select all

include "/usr/share/themes/Mist/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
gtk-font-name = "Arial 8"
include "/home/tenpin/.gtkrc.mine"
gtk-can-change-accels = 1

You don't need to use XFS. Most people just use the font server built into X.

kongit · Post by **kongit** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:33 pm

mozilla uses gtk I believe. Therefore you would have to chnage the fonts for gtk I believe.

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:39 pm

Thanks.
I'll try that and will get back here with some more trouble or a working result.

Pygos · Post by **Pygos** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:49 pm

On a side note as you mention TrueType fonts - I see your display fonts in Mozilla have the anti-aliased fuzzies. I have been working on a project for achieving good looking fonts "across the board" on my desktop (KDE) for a while.

Have a look here for a screenshot of my desktop (you'll get a bunch of errors from your browser about the website certificate - apologies about that I haven't got round to updating it yet. I don't open HTTP cause I got sick of being scanned for M$ IIS vulnerabilities). I am using TrueType fonts throughout and have got them looking best at small (6-10) point sizes i.e. not using anti-aliasing but still not looking jaggy. On an LCD screen particularly the fonts look great at the smaller sizes.

I have seen a number of discussions on the forum about font de-uglification, moving forward to font "beautification" but haven't seen (yet) one complete HOWTO. I am tossing up whether to write up a detailed (KDE orientated) HOWTO about it.

Update:
Thanks to TenPin - another part to the whole Linux fonts exercise... Changed my GTK default font to Tahoma 8 so my GTK (Gnome) apps now match my QT (KDE) apps. Updated my screenshot also

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:54 pm

Pygos, Hi!
Thankyou for your screenshot!

Interresting project.
I am compåletely new to any font handling in X. Well, not completely new. I DID start yesterday morning

So you have no anti-aliasing.
I actually think anti-aliasing is nicer. However, you have managed to do something I want to learn. I would like to enforce use of my truetype fonts from windows.
They are already in use, but if I disable certain other font paths {1}, X won't start. Where can I read about such things?

{1}
these:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
and
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:59 pm

Thankyou TenPin.
This is how it looks now:
http://ext.nineab.com/jonas/moz-nine.png

Well, see if this is as it should, The font is:

Code: Select all

include "/usr/share/themes/Mist/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
gtk-font-name = "MS Sans Serif 7"
include "/home/tenpin/.gtkrc.mine"
gtk-can-change-accels = 1

And I think size 7 should look smaller than that.
Maybe there is a setting for dpi somewhere?

Pygos · Post by **Pygos** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:38 pm

jonaswidarsson wrote: So you have no anti-aliasing.
I actually think anti-aliasing is nicer. However, you have managed to do something I want to learn. I would like to enforce use of my truetype fonts from windows.

Hi - no I actually do use anti-aliasing (sorry if any confusion) but exclude it for fonts between 6 and 12 points. The reason being that at those small font sizes anti-aliasing actually makes fonts less readable because they become "fuzzy". Anti-aliasing becomes very useful when fonts go above a certain size (lets say 16 points) but for 8/10/12 points it is not effective.

Have a look at this second screenshot of my Mozilla screen taken from same website you did screen shot of. You see the 8 point Tahoma font is very fine - on my LCD screen it shows as crisp one pixel wide font. If I put on anti-aliasing for small fonts it becomes a fuzzy 2-3 pixel wide font.

This discussion is most relevant to TrueType fonts which most people are using to get nice fonts under Linux. To get TrueType fonts to display properly you need to have the FreeType (font engine) installed and enabled in XF86Config, which you most likely will have.

FreeType has the ability to use a feature in TrueType called "hinting" which can particularly optimise the display of the font at small sizes. There is one hitch... which you can read here http://www.freetype.org/patents.html Of course you can work around that... I have compiled FreeType in Gentoo with the bytecode flag on. I believe there is a posting with details on the forum - this is also something I was looking at for a HOWTO.

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:50 pm

OK, nice. I would read it

.
Sorry to say I can't read your screenshot clicking on it. I had to add a very special little "s" at a certain position

.

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:51 pm

So these are your first two posts by the way!
Welcome!

Pygos · Post by **Pygos** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 6:18 pm

jonaswidarsson wrote:So these are your first two posts by the way!
Welcome!

Thanks

I fixed the link - originally copied URL from testing inside my network as http:// and forgot to add the "s", oops. Yes - my first posts in the Gentoo forum - funny being a n00b