infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

miOw · 2015-01-08 12:53:46

Thanks a lot for making this infinality bundle available.

I have problem with some fonts in Firefox.
Some letters look almost split in half:
Google example
Wikipedia example

"w" has part of its right edge not displayed:
Google example

Do you know what could be causing this and how i can fix it?

abmantis · 2015-01-08 22:06:06

miOw wrote:

Thanks a lot for making this infinality bundle available.
I have problem with some fonts in Firefox.
Some letters look almost split in half:
http://i.imgur.com/iEKJyfO.png
http://i.imgur.com/oPxsEhf.png
"w" has part of its right edge not displayed:
http://i.imgur.com/KpFR1Qi.png
Do you know what could be causing this and how i can fix it?

I also have this problem in Chrome (and Firefox too).

bohoomil · 2015-01-09 03:03:33

@miOw & @abmantis Decrease the value of fringe filter in `infinality-settings` from 60 to 50 (or even 40, if necessary):

export INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="50"

miOw · 2015-01-09 11:29:56

I was using USE_STYLE="5" and now tried changing INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH. Problem was still noticeable.
After switching back to USE_STYLE="2" and setting INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="40" it seems to be much better.
"w" is still the same. Also noticed similar problem with "o" in Steam:
Steam example

bohoomil · 2015-01-09 13:57:35

Sorry, I'm not using Steam and I have no idea how its font backend works.

abmantis · 2015-01-09 18:47:45

@bohoomil Thanks! I will try that as soon as I get home.
I also use style 5. If, as described by @miOw, it does not solve the problem what other solutions do we have?
I changed to style 5 since with style 2 fonts were too faint/light and caused eye strain and fatigue.

Also, can you share on what you think as the best fonts to use on the desktop's interface? Should I just use "Sans", "Monospace" and such? Those are just alias right?

bohoomil · 2015-01-09 21:30:46

@abmantis Thanks for the feedback. Right now I'm testing the following settings (with the default style, 2):

export INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="50"
export INFINALITY_FT_USE_VARIOUS_TWEAKS="true"
export INFINALITY_FT_CHROMEOS_STYLE_SHARPENING_STRENGTH="20"
export INFINALITY_FT_GAMMA_CORRECTION="30 80"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_ALIGNMENT_STRENGTH="25"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_FITTING_STRENGTH="25"

I think it does the trick in a subtle yet distinctive way. If you want even more additional weight, you may check this out with style 3 or 4; for me, 2 is still OK and pretty safe across the apps, though.

The best one can do is simply fine tune the settings on their own: there are many additional options you can experiment with (grab the generic infinality-settings.sh for reference: the file was comprehensively commented by the original author) that should let you create a well optimized style for your monitor.

Speaking of fonts for the interface: I've been using Droid Sans 9px for many months now and I really like it. A few others I was using previously: Source Sans Pro 10px, Lucida Grande 9px, DejaVu Sans 9px, Roboto 10px, Liberation Sans 10px… Many will do, just test them and see which one looks best for you. The most common (and not-so-common) free options are already in the `ib` repository and I believe the one for you is also there. ;-)

abmantis · 2015-01-13 22:25:19

@bohoomil Thank you very much for the help!

Unfortunately I'm still not completely happy :S
Your suggestion improves it a bit, but does not solve the problem.

I think that fonts look "dirty". It seems that hinting is not correct and is only applied sometimes or differently (even on the same letter).
I'm aware of the effect of hinting and anti-aliasing, and when I say "dirty" I'm not talking about the font getting "blurry" or less crisp, but getting inconsistent and messy.

For example, check the square brakets on next the screenshot. The right bracket has hinting on the right, but the let bracket has no hinting.
http://i.imgur.com/HmVUV9I.png

Also see the next screenshot. 'F' is sharp, but the rest is dirty, specially 'i'.
http://i.imgur.com/iKPqahn.png

These screenshots are from Chrome.
I'm using the settings you've suggested in your latest post.
I've also tried using the generic infinality-settings.sh and tweaking it, but I wasn't able to fix these issues.

Last edited by abmantis (2015-01-14 00:40:07)

bohoomil · 2015-01-14 00:36:08

@abmantis Could you please share the link to the exact site the screenshots come from?

Typical differences between rendering of vertical stems in Firefox (left) and Chromium (right) are noticeable, but they don't seem to be extremely huge, though (infinality-settings.sh contains the extra lines from my previous posts):

FluxBB bbcode test

abmantis · 2015-01-14 00:42:04

@bohoomil I've edited the post and added the links next to the images.

Could you please share a screenshot of a Google search page so I can compare?

bohoomil · 2015-01-14 00:55:30

@abmantis What I meant was a link, a.k.a url of the site... Your screenshots were too tiny to shrink them any further. :-)

Here is google.com rendered with Arial: top and bottom.

abmantis · 2015-01-14 18:08:48

@bohoomil Oh right! Duh! They are from Google Inbox. It is where fonts are worst.

Thanks for your screenshots. They don't look that different from mine. But you also have some "bitten" letters, such as the 'R' in Rendering (second-to-last result in the bottom).
I'll experiment a bit more later and post the results here.

KC9YDN · 2015-01-25 21:52:57

Hi!

I'm having some problems with smaller fonts having a reddish tinge to them. This is mostly noticeable with white fonts on black backgrounds.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

bohoomil · 2015-01-25 22:52:19

@KC9YDN Personally, I can't see anything alarming in the shots, but you may try adding the following snippet to `/etc/fonts/conf.d/97-selective-rendering-custom.conf` (assuming the font is Liberation Mono):

  <match target="font">
    <test name="family">
      <string>Liberation Mono</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
      <const>none</const>
    </edit>
  </match>

orschiro · 2015-02-03 12:54:40

I have a quick question. Overall I am very happy with the default settings using the style 5.

The only thing that is still bothering me is the font rendering of Spotify which is slightly too narrow:

Which of the below values do I have to tweak to make the font a little bit thicker?

export INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="25"
export INFINALITY_FT_USE_VARIOUS_TWEAKS="true"
export INFINALITY_FT_WINDOWS_STYLE_SHARPENING_STRENGTH="25"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_ALIGNMENT_STRENGTH="15"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_FITTING_STRENGTH="15"

Thankfully,

Robert

bohoomil · 2015-02-03 19:13:12

You can try commenting out

export INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="25"

and/or adding even more weight, e.g.

export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="12 30 44 30 12"

ix7 · 2015-02-06 06:05:58

Hi,

my fonts are crashing from time to time.

http://i.imgur.com/WpkZeqr.jpg (308 kB image)

Happens only in GTK apps it seems. After closing and starting the apps again, the issue is gone.

I'm using Noto Sans Bold/ Noto Sans/ Noto Serif/ Inconsolata for the desktop and AntiAliasing=1, Autohint=0 and Slight RBG

bohoomil · 2015-02-06 07:47:23

How about a little nice

# fc-cache -rv

?

RibShark · 2015-02-24 09:59:43

Qt4 has an issue where it displays medium versions of fonts when "Regular" is selected, causing all text to look bolder than expected. I fixed this with Roboto by placing the following configuration file in ~/.fontconfig/conf.d:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

<match target="scan">
	<test name="fullname" compare="eq">
		<string>Roboto Medium</string>
	</test>
	<edit name="family" mode="assign">
		<string>Roboto</string>
	</edit>
	<edit name="style" mode="assign">
		<string>Medium</string>
	</edit>
	<edit name="weight" mode="assign">
		<const>demibold</const>
	</edit>
</match>

<match target="scan">
	<test name="fullname" compare="eq">
		<string>Roboto Medium Italic</string>
	</test>
	<edit name="family" mode="assign">
		<string>Roboto</string>
	</edit>
	<edit name="style" mode="assign">
		<string>Medium Italic</string>
	</edit>
	<edit name="weight" mode="assign">
		<const>demibold</const>
	</edit>
</match>

</fontconfig>

Would it be possible to integrate this into infinality-bundle for all fonts that are affected by this bug?

jakub · 2015-02-24 19:38:21

Hi. Could someone please help me configuring infinality? In general fonts look quite good but in Netbeans have really ugly colored borders and it decreases readability (in Webstorm situation is the same). I don't know how it works. But just compare these two screenshots.

This one is from grip, having Envy Code R font:
Grip

And this one is from Netbeans (notice colored borders) * you have to zoom the picture to notice them as after uploading files got slightly compressed. Situation is even worse with text in bold.

I tried setting some JAVA_OPTIONS like

export _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd -Dswing.aatext=true'

and Netbeans font rendering reflects such configuration. Unfortunately my font rendering in Netbeans doesn't produce fonts looking as good as here http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqFontRendering#Font_Rendering_in_NetBeans_IDE.

Is it some Netbeans specific option or my infinality configuration is just not as good as it should?

infinality-settings.sh

###          freetype2-infinality-ultimate settings          ###
###           rev. 0.4.8.3, for freetype2 v.2.5.x            ###
###                                                          ###
###                Copyright (c) 2014 bohoomil               ###
### The MIT License (MIT) http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT ###
###      part of infinality-bundle  http://bohoomil.com      ###


XFT_SETTINGS="
Xft.antialias:  1
Xft.autohint:   0
Xft.dpi:        96
Xft.hinting:    1
Xft.hintstyle:  hintfull
Xft.lcdfilter:  lcddefault
Xft.rgba:       rgb
"

echo "$XFT_SETTINGS" | xrdb -merge > /dev/null 2>&1

### Available styles:
### 1 <> extra sharp
### 2 <> sharper & lighter ultimate
### 3 <> ultimate: well balanced (default)
### 4 <> darker & smoother
### 5 <> darkest & heaviest ("MacIsh")

USE_STYLE="3"

if [ "$USE_STYLE" = "1" ]; then
  export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="04 22 38 22 04"
elif [ "$USE_STYLE" = "2" ]; then
  export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="06 22 36 22 06"
elif [ "$USE_STYLE" = "3" ]; then
  export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="08 24 36 24 08"
elif [ "$USE_STYLE" = "4" ]; then
  export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="10 25 37 25 10"
elif [ "$USE_STYLE" = "5" ]; then
  export INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS="12 28 42 28 12"
fi

export INFINALITY_FT_FRINGE_FILTER_STRENGTH="25"
export INFINALITY_FT_USE_VARIOUS_TWEAKS="true"
export INFINALITY_FT_WINDOWS_STYLE_SHARPENING_STRENGTH="25"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_ALIGNMENT_STRENGTH="15"
export INFINALITY_FT_STEM_FITTING_STRENGTH="15"

# vim:ft=sh:

In XFCE I have set AA, full hinting, RGB sub-pixel, and DPI set to 96.

Last edited by jakub (2015-02-26 21:34:35)

bohoomil · 2015-02-25 21:15:18

@RibShark Your solution is pretty fine as long as the package doesn't originally offer a demibold variant. However, medium and semi-/demibold fonts aren't the same thing, so a fontconfig rule like yours would eventually interfere with correct weight recognition wherever we have both medium and demi weight available (see Source Code Pro, Exo 2, Fira Sans, etc.). In the past, we had a similar issue with Ubuntu family and eventually I decided to remove the medium weight from the package altogether (just like it's done in the official Arch's ttf-ubuntu-family). I don't know how many people actually use the medium variant (especially when there's a choice between medium and demibold), but it seems that it'd be better if we removed the redundant medium in order to keep the original demi where it's present. I can do this, but first of all I'd like to make sure that people can live without it. Otherwise, I'd suggest that we mention your workaround in the Wiki and leave an optional fontconfig rule in, say, 97-selective-rendering-custom.conf, so that anyone who needs it can enable it when necessary.

@jakub Your infinality runtime settings are OK. You should, however, install either foo-openjdk-infinality from AUR, or stick with Oracle's proprietary JDK/JRE. Besides, instead of '-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd', you may want to set '-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd_hrgb'.

jakub · 2015-02-26 09:57:26

@bohoomil - setting lcd_hrgb didn't help too much (actually in XFCE settings I still have just 'rgb' insted of 'horizontal rgb' as the former setting give slightly better results). I tried installing jdk8-openjdk-infinality from AUR but I couldn't install it (I put details as comment on the package site).

Keisha · 2015-02-26 10:20:59

@bohoomil,

Hello and my eyes give you a million thanks for infinality. I've been compiling and using it on Puppy Linux since early 2013. I'm also using the very newest (Jan 30 2015) version on DebianDog Jessie (a "Puppy-fied" version of Debian Jessie). I simply could not stand to use a computer which does not have infinality.

I'm trying to compile a version now for "DebianDog Wheezy," which is somewhat Puppy-like and is based (you guessed it) on Wheezy. Its old versions of libc6-2.13 and libglib-2.32.4 can't support the newest infinality unless I update so many basic building blocks that it destroys the dpkg database ...,so, I'm trying to compile a suitably retro version based on freetype-2.4.9 (which produces libfreetype.so.6.8.1), cairo-1.12.2 (which produces libcairo.so.2.11200.2) and fontconfig-2.9.0 (which produces libfontconfig.so.1.5.0). This is vintage March-April 2012 source.

freetype and cairo are no problem to compile, because the infinality patches for freetype-2.4.9 are available in your fedora archive and the cairo patch has changed so little over time that it is easy to see where to manually apply the version of the infinality cairo patchset which was supplied for cairo-1.12.8 --I happen to have saved this from when i first started compiling infinality.

However I lack the infinality patchset for libfontconfig.so.1.5.0 produced by the fontconfig-2.9.0 source package. Can you possibly make this available?

Thanks much,
Mike Smith

bohoomil · 2015-02-27 23:23:04

@jakub You shouldn't touch your XFCE settings: just change the line in your _JAVA_OPTIONS. If you can't compile JDK8 (btw, try building the package in a clean chroot environment), try replacing it with the Oracle binaries. With default ib settings and _JAVA_OPTIONS provided above, it should look a bit better:

The infinality-patched OpenJDK looks nicer, though.

@Keisha Thank you for the feedback. If possible, please send me an e-mail via Arch's Forums mailer (you didn't provide yours, unfortunately) so we can discuss the issue in private.

ggg377 · 2015-02-27 23:49:31

Hey,

I don't think my Chromium should look muddy like this (bookmarks bar and basically all other Chromium fonts are affected):

Everything else looks fairly normal, so I'm assuming it's a Chromium issue.

I tried uncommenting this in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf and nothing happened (some other fonts got messed up):

<!--match target="pattern">
<edit name="dpi" mode="assign">
<double>72</double>
</edit>
</match-->

Arch Linux

#1551 2015-01-08 12:53:46

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1552 2015-01-08 22:06:06

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1553 2015-01-09 03:03:33

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1554 2015-01-09 11:29:56

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1555 2015-01-09 13:57:35

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1556 2015-01-09 18:47:45

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1557 2015-01-09 21:30:46

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1558 2015-01-13 22:25:19

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1559 2015-01-14 00:36:08

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1560 2015-01-14 00:42:04

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1561 2015-01-14 00:55:30

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1562 2015-01-14 18:08:48

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1563 2015-01-25 21:52:57

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1564 2015-01-25 22:52:19

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1565 2015-02-03 12:54:40

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1566 2015-02-03 19:13:12

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1567 2015-02-06 06:05:58

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1568 2015-02-06 07:47:23

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1569 2015-02-24 09:59:43

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1570 2015-02-24 19:38:21

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1571 2015-02-25 21:15:18

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1572 2015-02-26 09:57:26

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1573 2015-02-26 10:20:59

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1574 2015-02-27 23:23:04

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

#1575 2015-02-27 23:49:31

Re: infinality-bundle: good looking fonts made (even) easier

Board footer