Arch Linux

lumiwa

Member

Registered: 2005-12-26

Posts: 712

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

i've tried some of that, but when i remove my .fonts.conf and the local.conf, it looks totally horrible.

get some serious ugly.  :shock:

Look at this site:

http://www.michael-and-mary.net/?q=node/440

slackhack

Member

Registered: 2004-06-30

Posts: 738

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

i've tried some of that, but when i remove my .fonts.conf and the local.conf, it looks totally horrible.

get some serious ugly.  :shock:

Look at this site:

http://www.michael-and-mary.net/?q=node/440

that's my .fonts.conf that i got from cathetic in the LQ thread mentioned in the comments. i used to have it posted on my site, i guess they got it from there. you're right, though -- without that, it's game over.

the fonts aren't too bad in xfce4 now with the configuration i mentioned above. not as good as gnome, but acceptable. maybe i'll switch to gnome, i've used xfce4/fluxbox, etc. for the past couple of years, might be time for a change.

lanrat

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2003-10-28

Posts: 1,274

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

I made a lot of tests this evening with fontconfig configurations (all versions from latest upgrade and generally using ms core fonts).

I found 4 configurations that produce different usable fonts. Other configurations did't make any visual difference or were simply crap :-)

I placed all important things in local.conf and left these symlinks only in /etc/fonts/conf.d:

ls /etc/fonts/conf.d/
20-unhint-small-vera.conf  
40-generic.conf  
49-sansserif.conf  
51-local.conf  
65-nonlatin.conf  
69-unifont.conf  
90-synthetic.conf

(as you can see I disabled user's .fonts.conf file too)

And this is my full /etc/fonts/local.conf file: mirror 1, mirror 2, mirror 3, mirror 4

Configs and changes:
1. similar to windows xp without cleartype (default, no hinting):
a) autohint = false
b) hintstyle = hintnone
c) antialias = false

[URL=http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1autohintfalsehintnoneantialiasfalseis7.png][/URL]

2. similar to windows xp with cleartype activated (full hinting with autohinter):
a) autohint = true
b) hintstyle = hintfull
c) antialias = true

[URL=http://img275.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2autohinttruehintfullantialiastruepb9.png][/URL]

3. weird config:
a) autohint = true
b) hintstyle = hintnone
c) antialias = true

[URL=http://img275.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3autohinttruehintnoneantialiastruefg0.png][/URL]

4. even more weird config:
a) autohint = false
b) hintstyle = hintfull
c) antialias = true

[URL=http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=4autohintfalsehintfullantialiastruegk4.png][/URL]

No 2 and 4 look similar but IMHO 2 is much better on other webpages:

Ad 2.
[URL=http://img226.imageshack.us/my.php?image=arch2oo0.png][/URL]

Ad 4.
[URL=http://img226.imageshack.us/my.php?image=arch4mn8.png][/URL]

No 2 is mu current config. Any comments?

EDIT:
Screenshots from win xp with cleartype enabled for comparision:
[URL=http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=win1ne3.png][/URL]

[URL=http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=win2rm9.png][/URL]

I need to do "a little" more work to make it look closer to these :-)

slackhack

Member

Registered: 2004-06-30

Posts: 738

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

I made a lot of tests this evening with fontconfig configurations (all versions from latest upgrade and generally using ms core fonts).

excellent! that really simplifies things on a single-user system where users don't need their own ~/.fonts.conf.

i like your No.2 best, too. the windows cleartype sans looks pretty good, but when linux fonts are working great they look even better than win cleartype, imo.

for me, the hinting for bold fonts makes all the difference. without it, the spacing seems to look too wide, giving a kind of washed out look (again, to me at least):
bold no hinting
bold with hinting

i also found an old shot from last summer, and compared it to a current one with both using the same configuration:
> then
> now
you can see the slight degradation in freetype2 hinting (to my eyes), with the fonts getting a little less full. maybe on a crt the old ones would look fuzzy, so it's a tradeoff (or maybe the freetype people just like the thin and spindly fonts ) but to me they don't look as good (on LCD anyway). in gnome they look thicker/better when you're able to tweak them using the gnome font panel, where you can adjust best contrast, best shapes, etc., but there seems to be no way to do that in kde or xfce4. the new ones are definitely acceptable though. the clarity is definitely improving. :thumbsup:

lanrat

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2003-10-28

Posts: 1,274

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

for me, the hinting for bold fonts makes all the difference. without it, the spacing seems to look too wide, giving a kind of washed out look (again, to me at least):

I think hintstyle made more difference to font's look in the previous fontconfig versions. Now hintfull is the only usable option. But I turn off autohinter for bold fonts because with the autohinter turned on it makes them fuzzy, washed out look and too wide to me :-)

i also found an old shot from last summer, and compared it to a current one with both using the same configuration:

In the past people usually used BCI hinter which gives thicker (stronger) fonts. Autohinter always gives thin fonts so that's probably how they like it :-)

in gnome they look thicker/better when you're able to tweak them using the gnome font panel, where you can adjust best contrast, best shapes, etc., but there seems to be no way to do that in kde or xfce4.

I think kde relies only on fontconfig I mean it saves settings to users .font.conf file and restarts kde applications. But it doesn't use autohinter - if you then don't turn on autohinter in local.conf it may produce fuzzy fonts.
If gnome also saves all settings to some fontconfig file we could copy them to local.conf and use with other DMs/WMs. Unless of course it uses some other dirty trick.

Deciare

Member

From: UTC -8:00

Registered: 2005-05-05

Posts: 79

Re: Font rendering change after upgrade

Explicitly setting a hinting style (hintslight, hintmedium, or hintfull) in my /etc/fonts/conf.d directory fixed the inconsistent rendering I was getting between KDE apps and non-KDE apps.

In /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hintfull.conf, I put:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign"><const>hintfull</const></edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

That caused all my fonts to be spaced out like Firefox. XD

So something is causing Firefox and other non-KDE apps to get stuck at hintfull whereas KDE can choose...

Last edited by Deciare (2007-02-20 06:16:28)