Re: FreeType now includes Infinality subpixel support

Infinality <infinality@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:56:14 -0500



      On 06/20/2012 09:22 PM, Akira TAGOH wrote:
      

      On Thu, Jun 21,
        2012 at 5:11 AM, Infinality <infinality@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
        wrote:
        

        As far as I
          know, there really isn't bytecode that is specific to
          Cleartype.
          

            Bytecode is bytecode.  The Cleartype flag (or the phrase
          "designed for
          

          Cleartype") generally means that the font doesn't contain the
          legacy hacks
          

          used in fonts like Arial, Courier New, etc., which are
          problematic when
          

          being displayed with antialiasing on a TT rasterizer that is
          following
          

          specs.  The subpixel hinting functionality works around the
          issues with the
          

          legacy fonts, while allowing modern fonts to render as though
          they are
          

          "designed for Cleartype".   Or am I not understanding what you
          mean here?
          

        Well, the question was how it looks when rendering the text with
        

        mixing up "ClearType" fonts and legacy fonts, because it seems
        that
        

        there is/was? the case in Windows that one is smooth and one is
        jaggy
        

        when ClearType is turning on.
        

        As you said the above, I guess it won't happens?
        

      Well, it depends on what you mean by "legacy fonts".  If you are
      talking about bitmap (non-tt) fonts then those would of course
      always render jaggy.  Any ttf fonts with (semi-good) instructions
      should render with subpixel hinting under Freetype like they would
      with Windows w/Cleartype.  (The goal is to render them similarly
      to the MS rasterizer, and potentially even better!)
      

        The choices you
          get in Windows (as far as I know) are to have Cleartype on
          

          or off.  In fontconfig this would correspond to the below
          configurations.  A
          

          link to a corresponding image is above each configuration. 
          (Don't pay
          

          attention to the text in it, because it's the same across all
          images):
          

        Thanks. that would be useful. it may be a good idea to add those
        

        configuration as reference in fontconfig.
        

      Yes, that might be worth mentioning somewhere.  I know that some
      major distros like OpenSUSE are planning on using subpixel hinting
      by default now that it's in Freetype.  Other distros have packages
      that are available too.  More people will likely be using subpixel
      hinting now that it's in Freetype, so having documentation as to
      "what settings do what" might be good.  If you need me to help you
      out with that, I'd be more than willing.  I do have my git repo of
      "fontconfig-infinality" which contains TT fonts that I know work
      well with subpixel hinting.  Perhaps that could be somehow
      incorporated into fontconfig itself, now that subpixel hinting is
      in Freetype??
      

      Thanks,
      

      Erik
      

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