Zed is now available on Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#11

Post by typpilol » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

jsheard wrote: post #10

Have they implemented subpixel font rendering by now? I remember that being a sticking point when it came to Linux because they had designed their custom UI renderer around the Macs ubiquitous HiDPI displays, leading to blurry fonts for the much, much larger proportion of Linux (and Windows) users who still use LoDPI displays.

No lol

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#12

Post by metaltyphoon » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:36 PM UTC

janpio wrote: post #5

nwah1 wrote: post #2

Is it on winget?

> winget search zed Name Id Version Match Source ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zed Preview ZedIndustries.Zed 0.208.4-pre Moniker: zed winget So not fully updated yet it seems.

Soon https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/pull/303728

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#13

Post by Rohansi » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #8

eviks wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its binary is half a gig in size, so just like a browser, nothing fresh about that.

Size on disk is about 64x less relevant than size in RAM for me. To give Zed some credit in this area, it's statically linked and the Linux binary is half the size as the Windows one.

What could they be statically linking to have a 400MB executable?

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#14

Post by _fzslm » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

I have waited for this for months... but it's still only an x86_64 binary!

I love my ARM Surface Pro, and Zed would make a wonderful editor on this hardware. If anyone from Zed is reading this, please think about it!

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#15

Post by sapiogram » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

jsheard wrote: post #10

Have they implemented subpixel font rendering by now? I remember that being a sticking point when it came to Linux because they had designed their custom UI renderer around the Macs ubiquitous HiDPI displays, leading to blurry fonts for the much, much larger proportion of Linux (and Windows) users who still use LoDPI displays.

Idk about subpixel font rendering, but font rendering on Linux looks massively better after a patch last week: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992#issuecomme...

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#16

Post by jsheard » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

sapiogram wrote: post #15

jsheard wrote: post #10

Have they implemented subpixel font rendering by now? I remember that being a sticking point when it came to Linux because they had designed their custom UI renderer around the Macs ubiquitous HiDPI displays, leading to blurry fonts for the much, much larger proportion of Linux (and Windows) users who still use LoDPI displays.

Idk about subpixel font rendering, but font rendering on Linux looks massively better after a patch last week: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992#issuecomme...

That "after" image is still rendered with greyscale AA rather than subpixel, but whatever they changed did make it more legible at least.

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#17

Post by pulsartwin » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

sapiogram wrote: post #15

jsheard wrote: post #10

Have they implemented subpixel font rendering by now? I remember that being a sticking point when it came to Linux because they had designed their custom UI renderer around the Macs ubiquitous HiDPI displays, leading to blurry fonts for the much, much larger proportion of Linux (and Windows) users who still use LoDPI displays.

Idk about subpixel font rendering, but font rendering on Linux looks massively better after a patch last week: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992#issuecomme...

I'm glad there's finally some progress in that direction. If they actually implement subpixel RGB anti-aliasing, it would definitely be worth considering as an alternative. It's been surprising to see so many people praise Zed when its text rendering (of all things) has been in such a state for so long.

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#18

Post by mathnode » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

I tried it for a bit. But unless you want to use their choice of lsp/linter/whatever from what you are used to, then you will waste even more time customising zed to your needs from your previous solution.

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#19

Post by sunshowers » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:50 PM UTC

_fzslm wrote: post #14

I have waited for this for months... but it's still only an x86_64 binary! I love my ARM Surface Pro, and Zed would make a wonderful editor on this hardware. If anyone from Zed is reading this, please think about it!

I build Zed for Windows aarch64 from source -- works great, though the build process is quite slow on my 16GB Surface Pro. Definitely hoping for official binaries, though!

Re: Zed is now available on Windows

#20

Post by TranquilMarmot » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:51 PM UTC

jsheard wrote: post #10

Have they implemented subpixel font rendering by now? I remember that being a sticking point when it came to Linux because they had designed their custom UI renderer around the Macs ubiquitous HiDPI displays, leading to blurry fonts for the much, much larger proportion of Linux (and Windows) users who still use LoDPI displays.

I tried it out on macOS and have a 1440p external monitor that the fonts just look horrible on. Looks fine on the laptop's "retina" display but blurry enough every else that it actually gave me a headache after a few hours.