A bit of context: this software is popular in China for tweaking Windows font rendering of CJK text (the author is also Chinese language-speaking). Hence the project is only fully localized in Chinese & English, and that the README is fairly simple because most people searching for it already know what it is for.
MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
71–80 of 130 posts
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#72It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…
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.
Smaller fonts are easier to read on low dpi screens with windows font rendering - that's the benefit. Assuming a high enough dpi display or just larger font sizes mac rendering is likely to look aesthetically better though (although that is still somewhat personal preference)
It's this form vs function distinction that's important here.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#73I use both Windows and Mac daily and I'm not sure that Mac font rendering is always better. Here is my experience:
On low DPI screens (think 24" or 25" at 1080p) I prefer how fonts render in Windows. It seems they have better antialiasing, while Mac fonts look slightly pixelated.
However on high DPI screens (13" Retina, 25" 4K etc.) fonts on Mac look sharper while Windows fonts look a bit "soft". So I prefer Mac on those.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#74It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…
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.
> macos is clearly better.
I disagree.
Yes I do prefer MacOS on high DPI screens but, at low DPI, I prefer Windows. It's about how the edges of characters look, as I was saying here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28031314
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#75Earlier 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.
I'm pretty sure since Windows 8 Microsoft has focused on making font rendering look very good on high DPI displays at the cost of making them look poor on more traditional low DPI displays. Windows font rendering looks really good on 4K monitors and laptops with high res screens. Not so much on your typical 1080p-fare.
Strange, in my experience fonts look better on Windows at low DPI, and better on Mac at high DPI. I guess it's personal preferences. To me, at low DPI fonts on Mac look as if they had rough edges. At high DPI however fonts on Windows look like the edges are too soft.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#76Earlier 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.
I don't agree with that. I think it's pretty clearly about preference. On non retina displays, MacOSX really is blurry, and my preference is clear lines, preferbly without antialiasing, an certainly without subpixel AA. I think pre cleartype Windows, Classic MacOS, or X11 with bitmap fonts looked the best, but was not flexible enough for modern requirements.
I still think bitmap fonts are by far the most readable at smaller sizes on lower dpi displays - you can fit so much more code without having to scroll, and I don't find it any harder to read than large TTF fonts on the same screen.
TTF fonts at small sizes on newer ~200+ dpi screens are even better again though. I'd love to try coding on a high res color e-paper screen.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> something that is obviously just personal preference I have a feeling that this exact idea is the reason why most Linux DEs look like crap [to me]. The way fonts look (especially those used in the system UI) is, just like colors or margins, [in my opinion] a matter of design, not just personal preference.
applies to most open source ux, because noone is allowed to take command which also does a good job of it. blender is a notable exception, though.
Blender really has turned around in the last few years UX wise. It used to be the go to punching bag when complaining about OSS with bad UX.
See Krita for another OSS project with great UX.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#78Earlier 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.
As soon as you realize that changing rasterization strategies alters the bounding box of character textures, and that a lot of UI positions are hardcoded, it makes sense.
> changing rasterization strategies alters the bounding box of character textures
This is big problem on Windows, where the heavy-handed hinting means actual font size doesn't even come close to being linearly related to requested font size. So you can't even make the simple assumptions such as that the same UI layout will work if you render everything at 2x for a high DPI screen.
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#79Earlier 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.
The most notable case was older versions of iTunes and safari for window which did manage their own font rendering and had MacOS style fonts. To me at least seeing both styles in the one OS looked bad and iTunes was the one that stuck out as being "wrong"
Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows
#80It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…
I always find Windows the worst of the 3 (comparing to either Gnome or Mac), so they must be doing something wrong there. I remember you can tweak it in control panel though?
Used MacType back in my window 7 days and I remember being quite happy with it. These days when I tried it out on windows 10/11 it does not seem to improve the experience much, perhaps fails to patch some elements of the UI, I don't care enough to investigate.