The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
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The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
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Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#2Direct link to the announcement:
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/freetype-devel/2016-07/...
(includes images with the old/new renderings)
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#3"Switching to the new mode might take some getting used to though, so if you think your fonts are suddenly fat, fuzzy or weird, give your brain some time to adjust."
This is true, and IMO it's the reason font rendering is much less important than people think. When I got a new pair of glasses I disabled font anti-aliasing to make the edges as sharp as possible. I did this so I could more quickly learn to focus my eyes correctly with the new glasses. By the time I had mastered the glasses I was used to the font rendering, and I have not switched it back. I now prefer fonts with no anti-aliasing. If you'd told me in the past that I'd end up preferring that I might not have believed it.
The most legible font is the one you're used to. People can read Blackletter or Spencerian like it's a normal font if they're used to it. I think vector fonts were a mistake. It's a lot of software complexity for very little value.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#4"Switching to the new mode might take some getting used to though, so if you think your fonts are suddenly fat, fuzzy or weird, give your brain some time to adjust." This is true, and IMO it's the reason font rendering is much less important than people think. When I got a new pair of glasses I disabled font anti-aliasing to make the edges as sharp as possible. I did this so I could more quickly learn to focus my eye…
Little value for the screen when all you want is 80x40, but massively necessary for desktop publishing. Metaphont exists for a reason.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#5"Switching to the new mode might take some getting used to though, so if you think your fonts are suddenly fat, fuzzy or weird, give your brain some time to adjust." This is true, and IMO it's the reason font rendering is much less important than people think. When I got a new pair of glasses I disabled font anti-aliasing to make the edges as sharp as possible. I did this so I could more quickly learn to focus my eye…
To be fair, the main reason for algorithmic fonts is so that non-latin characters scale up nicely. Storing chinese characters at a high bitmap resolution gets expensive fast, and you'd need several bitmaps for each character to keep them legible at smaller sizes.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#6"Switching to the new mode might take some getting used to though, so if you think your fonts are suddenly fat, fuzzy or weird, give your brain some time to adjust." This is true, and IMO it's the reason font rendering is much less important than people think. When I got a new pair of glasses I disabled font anti-aliasing to make the edges as sharp as possible. I did this so I could more quickly learn to focus my eye…
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Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#7Man, all these years I assumed FreeType's "slight" hinting setting was secretly the 'ignore horizontal hinting' option.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#8"Switching to the new mode might take some getting used to though, so if you think your fonts are suddenly fat, fuzzy or weird, give your brain some time to adjust." This is true, and IMO it's the reason font rendering is much less important than people think. When I got a new pair of glasses I disabled font anti-aliasing to make the edges as sharp as possible. I did this so I could more quickly learn to focus my eye…
Trying to read ClearType for any length of time beyond casual glances actually makes me dizzy and my eyes start watering because of the lack of sharp edges to focus on. Non-subpixel-AA still looks slightly blurry, but I don't get the same "WTF is happening to my eyes" feeling. I prefer non-AA as well, and in the example screenshots posted in the other comment here, it's the font to the left, describing the current settings, that I find most readable.
I wonder if part of the reason for those studies indicating that ClearType "improves reading speed" is because of that - slowing down to focus on the letters feels unpleasant, so people try to scan through the text as quickly as possible.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#9Finally. To be honest I switched back to using Windows on my private machine because font rendering on Linux (using Chromium and Firefox) was more like a lottery than something readable without enough alcohol.
A pity it will take some time to ship to Debian Testing, I'd love to try it without having to recompile the whole system.
Re: The new TrueType interpreter in FreeType 2.7.0
#10What? As someone who hates Windows' Font rendering, why would you want this?
The OS X font rendering is awesome, on Linux, Infinality can be tweaked to look even better, but windows? It's hideous, inconsistent and terrible to change...