Beta2: Nice job! / xorg Anti Aliasing

[Joe Koberg]

Andrew Gallatin wrote:

>Alexander Leidinger writes:
> > Andrew Gallatin <gallatin at cs.duke.edu> wrote:
> > 
> > > > Ah, so the deal is that you actually don't like the antialiasing
> > > > smoothness we all love. Hmm.
> > >
> > > Maybe it is something wrong with my eyes?
> > 
> > Maybe you have better eyes than other people?
>
>I've always had better than 20:20 vision, so I suppose that
>could be it.  Maybe I need to get some computer glasses
>that make everything blurry :)
>
> > Or you use the default anti-aliasing instead of subpixel anti-aliasing.
>
>I've tried various things in my ~/.fonts.conf.  It currently
>looks like this:
>  
>

Heres my experience in the quest for sharp, beautiful fonts:

1. get the microsoft web fonts. They are VERY nice. Much better than Vera.

2. turn on the bytecode interpreter in freetype if you dont mind 
violating a truetype patent.
I think this is a compile-time option.

3. Turn OFF autohinting - i find that font shapes are much better 
without it, BUT thin strokes
in the middle of two pixels will make two light grey pixels. This looks 
most like MacOS to me.

4. If you turn on subpixel AA, turn on the autohinter or you will get 
colored fringes. (the
autohinter lines up strokes to pixel centers - eliminating the "grey" 
pixels that will turn
colors under subpixel AA.)

5. Dont forget to try each autohinting style.


Joe Koberg
Joe at Osoft dot US