[Fontconfig] FreeType now includes Infinality subpixel support

Infinality
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:56:14 -0000

On 06/20/2012 09:22 PM, Akira TAGOH wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Infinality
> <infinality at infinality.net> 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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