MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

Post by ubercow13 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #25

nwallin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild to me that on both Windows and OSX that something that is obviously just personal preference is baked into the operating system, with no method for changing it. It's on the same level as having an operating system that didn't let you change your desktop background.

Optionality is one of those things that product managers hate right now, so the likelihood of that appearing if it hasn't already are slim That said, Windows has highly configurable font hinting/rendering so I'm perplexed as to why this project is a thing

Post by kzrdude » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

ithinkso wrote: post #29

oneplane wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, everything could be reconfigured at will, but if you can't provider a consistent UX, that wouldn't help a whole lot with sales and customer binding. How much you can, or can't modify as an end-user probably relates to the HIG and general usability and transferability as well. In some ways, there have been cases where you cannot change the background of things, or at least not in an obvious way. I su…

Or in other words - software isn't written to be used, it's written to be sold

Post by seltzered_ » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

fallenspec wrote: post #4

I had listened to an interview with the original cleartype author on a podcast almost a decade ago now. IIRC He said that when Apple got the cleartype patent (due to the Apple/Microsoft cross patent agreement that happened in the late 90s), they kinda messed up the implementation of cleartype and Windows actually implements it correctly and Mac OS X (now Mac OS) doesn't. So I find this somewhat amusing.

Post by breakfastduck » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

ascom wrote: post #40

didibus wrote: post #9

I just switched from Windows to a Mac, and I immediately found that the colors and contrast and the clarity of images and text on the same monitor I connect my laptop too improved. I wasn't sure if it was just in my head, but something about the rendering in Mac seems better to me. I don't know if they have better calibration for colors and contrast, better anti-aliasing, etc., but I seem to see the screen much bette…

Another possibility is that macOS actually does proper color management throughout the entire OS - the Windows shell/desktop is simply not color managed and it's especially irritating when you have a wide color gamut monitor.

Post by burnte » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

arsome wrote: post #59

hsn915 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood _why_ but text rendering on windows has always looked like garbage to me. It was obviously not the screen resolution or anything, because you can run a linux vm (say, on virtualbox) and the text rendering inside the VM will look much better than the text in windows. > Nobody's "right", it's just personal preference. I don't think that's true. macos is clearly better.

Interesting, I personally far prefer the Windows one on 100 DPI displays at least. The blurriness is quite noticeable on OS X and certain Windows applications that attempted to use this style of font rendering. Sure, it's great on higher DPI screens, but then it makes even less of a difference whichever one you use. I'd say Microsoft made the right call here.