Font rendering in F13

[Matthias Clasen]

Hey, 

early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
and leaves other fonts alone.

Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13. 

Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.

If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...


Matthias

[Jesse Keating]

On Wed, 2010-03-03 at 17:53 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why... 
Thanks for the heads up!

-- 
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating

[Ilyes Gouta]

Hi,

Will the bytecode interpreter in freetype be enabled for Fedora 14?

-Ilyes Gouta

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Hey,
>
>  early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>  freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>  Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>  from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>  that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>  with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>  and leaves other fonts alone.
>
>  Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
>  doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
>  fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.
>
>  Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
>  changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
>  change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.
>
>  If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...
>
>
>  Matthias
>
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Xose Vazquez Perez]

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>  freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>  Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>  from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>  that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>  with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>  and leaves other fonts alone. 
Are Xft/Cairo patched for ClearType ?
<http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html>

-- 
If less is more than more, most is more than less.

[Roberto Ragusa]

Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  Hey, 
>  
>  early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>  freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>  Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>  from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>  that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>  with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>  and leaves other fonts alone.
>  
>  Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
>  doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
>  fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.  
My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
all the bci stuff.

I understand that the target of these modifications is to have the bci
where available and the autohinter where bci info is missing.

Will there be an option to say "always use the autohinter?"?
If not, I would miss it badly.

-- 
   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it

[Ilyes Gouta]

Hi Xoze,

ClearType is a tech. for subpixel rendering that targets LCD screens, isn't it?

Xft/Cairo patching is then a different feature for Fedora 14, than the
bci vm being turned on by default in FreeType.

Regards,
-Ilyes Gouta

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 1:06 PM, Xose Vazquez Perez
<xose.vazquez(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen
> <mclasen(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>
> > early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
> > freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
> > Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
> > from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
> > that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
> > with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
> > and leaves other fonts alone.
>
>  Are Xft/Cairo patched for ClearType ?
> <http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html>
>
>  --
>  If less is more than more, most is more than less.
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Ilyes Gouta]

Hi Roberto,

>  My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
>  all the bci stuff. 
Mine tells a different story, especially when dealing with standard'
fonts such as Arial, Tahoma and even Courier New.

What I'd like to see is a true, fully featured font rendering
experience on the Linux desktop. Sadly, this goes through the bci
thing, a method for custom glyph control/reconstruction, which patents
expired recently.

-Ilyes Gouta

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Roberto Ragusa <mail(a)robertoragusa.it&gt; wrote:
> Matthias Clasen wrote:
>> Hey,
>>
>> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>> and leaves other fonts alone.
>>
>> Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
>> doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
>> fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.
>
>  My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
>  all the bci stuff. 
>
> I understand that the target of these modifications is to have the bci
> where available and the autohinter where bci info is missing.
>
> Will there be an option to say "always use the autohinter?"?
> If not, I would miss it badly.
>
> --
>   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it
> --
> devel mailing list
> devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Roberto Ragusa]

Ilyes Gouta wrote:
>  Hi Roberto,
>  
> > My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
> > all the bci stuff.
>  
>  Mine tells a different story, especially when dealing with standard'
>  fonts such as Arial, Tahoma and even Courier New.
>  
>  What I'd like to see is a true, fully featured font rendering
>  experience on the Linux desktop. Sadly, this goes through the bci
>  thing, a method for custom glyph control/reconstruction, which patents
>  expired recently. 
I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was actually
the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
welcomes the bci.

I don't mind defaults, I just need a flag to switch it off
for me (with no recompilation).

I don't want to find myself in the position of cursing the
_expiration_ of a lame software patent. 8-)

-- 
   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it

[Gianluca Sforna]

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Roberto Ragusa <mail(a)robertoragusa.it&gt; wrote:
>  I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
>  readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
>  wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was actually
>  the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
>  welcomes the bci.
>  
Actually, one of the first questions I get from users switching from
Ubuntu is why our fonts look worse than theirs.

As of today, I haven't a good answer, if anyone knows better I'd
really love to hear where we differ and if/how we plan to close the
gap.



-- 
Gianluca Sforna

http://morefedora.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gianlucasforna

[drago01]

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Gianluca Sforna <giallu(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Roberto Ragusa
> <mail(a)robertoragusa.it&gt; wrote:
> >
> > I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
> > readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
> > wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was actually
> > the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
> > welcomes the bci.
> >
>
>  Actually, one of the first questions I get from users switching from
>  Ubuntu is why our fonts look worse than theirs.
>
>  As of today, I haven't a good answer, if anyone knows better I'd
>  really love to hear where we differ and if/how we plan to close the
>  gap. 
We neither do have the BCI nor the subpixel hinter enabled.

The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
worse with it so we decided to disable it.
(I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
thing).

[Adam Williamson]

On Sun, 2010-05-23 at 21:51 +0200, drago01 wrote:
>  On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Gianluca Sforna
> <giallu(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  > On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Roberto Ragusa <mail(a)robertoragusa.it&gt;
> wrote:
>  >>
>  >> I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
>  >> readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
>  >> wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was actually
>  >> the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
>  >> welcomes the bci.
>  >>
>  >
>  > Actually, one of the first questions I get from users switching from
>  > Ubuntu is why our fonts look worse than theirs.
>  >
>  > As of today, I haven't a good answer, if anyone knows better I'd
>  > really love to hear where we differ and if/how we plan to close the
>  > gap.
>  
>  We neither do have the BCI nor the subpixel hinter enabled.
>  
>  The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
>  worse with it so we decided to disable it.
>  (I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
>  look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
>  thing). 
AIUI, Microsoft fonts - Arial and the rest - are designed with BCI in
mind and look better that way. Free world fonts - Deja Vu and so on -
were designed with the autohinter in mind, and tend to look better that
way.

That's always been how it's looked to me as well, FWIW. Given that we
default to using free world fonts and can't ship Microsoft's fonts it
would seem sensible to default to the autohinter rather than the BCI, in
my opinion. I definitely prefer the autohinter's interpretation of the
fonts I usually use (Deja Vu / Vera).

I'd say the principle should be that we should use whichever
non-encumbered method gives the closest rendering to that intended by
the font designer of our default font set for any particular release.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Ilyes Gouta]

Hi,

>  That's always been how it's looked to me as well, FWIW. Given
> that we
>  default to using free world fonts and can't ship Microsoft's fonts it
>  would seem sensible to default to the autohinter rather than the BCI, in
>  my opinion. I definitely prefer the autohinter's interpretation of the
>  fonts I usually use (Deja Vu / Vera). 
I think it all boils down to this question:

Do we want Fedora to provide full support for the TrueType standard
(actually file format is much more appropriate) or not?

>  I'd say the principle should be that we should use whichever
>  non-encumbered method gives the closest rendering to that intended by
>  the font designer of our default font set for any particular release. 
> From what I know, the FreeType API doesn't allow to switch from
> one 
method to another on a per-font basis. But to move on and completely
disable such a feature (bci) is a hefty price to pay. Would be nice if
we could build a kind of a whitelist where bci would be used against
this and that font and disabled otherwise.

-Ilyes Gouta

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Adam Williamson <awilliam(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-05-23 at 21:51 +0200, drago01 wrote:
>> On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Gianluca Sforna <giallu(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>> > On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Roberto Ragusa
<mail(a)robertoragusa.it&gt; wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
>> >> readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
>> >> wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was
actually
>> >> the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
>> >> welcomes the bci.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Actually, one of the first questions I get from users switching from
>> > Ubuntu is why our fonts look worse than theirs.
>> >
>> > As of today, I haven't a good answer, if anyone knows better I'd
>> > really love to hear where we differ and if/how we plan to close the
>> > gap.
>>
>> We neither do have the BCI nor the subpixel hinter enabled.
>>
>> The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
>> worse with it so we decided to disable it.
>> (I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
>> look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
>> thing).
>
> AIUI, Microsoft fonts - Arial and the rest - are designed with BCI in
> mind and look better that way. Free world fonts - Deja Vu and so on -
> were designed with the autohinter in mind, and tend to look better that
> way.
>
>  That's always been how it's looked to me as well, FWIW. Given
> that we
>  default to using free world fonts and can't ship Microsoft's fonts it
>  would seem sensible to default to the autohinter rather than the BCI, in
>  my opinion. I definitely prefer the autohinter's interpretation of the
>  fonts I usually use (Deja Vu / Vera). 
>
>  I'd say the principle should be that we should use whichever
>  non-encumbered method gives the closest rendering to that intended by
>  the font designer of our default font set for any particular release. 
> --
> Adam Williamson
> Fedora QA Community Monkey
> IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
> http://www.happyassassin.net
>
> --
> devel mailing list
> devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Matej Cepl]

Dne 25.5.2010 18:17, Adam Williamson napsal(a):
>  Free world fonts - Deja Vu and so on -
>  were designed with the autohinter in mind, and tend to look better that
>  way. 
Not all of them ... I was chatting with the author of Iconoclasta and he 
admitted he developed the font on Windows and with BCI on his mind.

Matěj

-- 
Basically, the only ???intuitive??? interface is the nipple.  After
that, it's all learned.
     -- Bruce Ediger when discussing intuivity of Mac OS
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next.advocacy\
        /msg/7fa8c580900353d0

[Matthew Miller]

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 09:51:53PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
>  The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
>  worse with it so we decided to disable it.
>  (I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
>  look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
>  thing). 
Take a look at the two screenshots I attached to bug
<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532>;.

I think that, while it might be subjective, it's pretty clear that the
"without bytecode" version is much, much better for Inconsolata -- which I
spend my day using.

-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

[Martin Sourada]

On Wed, 2010-05-26 at 10:29 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote: 
>  On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 09:51:53PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
>  > The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
>  > worse with it so we decided to disable it.
>  > (I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
>  > look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
>  > thing).
>  
>  Take a look at the two screenshots I attached to bug
>  <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532>;.
>  
>  I think that, while it might be subjective, it's pretty clear that the
>  "without bytecode" version is much, much better for Inconsolata -- which I
>  spend my day using. 
Depends on the criteria you use. The "with bytecode"
version has better
kerning, better shapes, better flow, but is blurry (yeah, without
subpixel hintinting the fonts just are blurry and that's the main cause
why people say they look ugly). The "with bytecode" on the other hand is
perfectly crisp, but the shapes are worse, the flow is not so smooth,
some letters look a little deformed... With that said I use subpixel
hinting and I usually personally prefer the autohinter (but this one
depends on the font, some look better to me autohinted, some using
BCI...). 

But generally, if font looks bad hinted when using BCI, it's most likely
a bug in font, but when BCI is not present we need to fall back to
autohinter, not just turn off the hinting.

Martin

[Ilyes Gouta]

+1

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 6:30 PM, Martin Sourada
<martin.sourada(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Wed, 2010-05-26 at 10:29 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
> > On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 09:51:53PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
> > > The patents for the former expired but apparently some fonts look
> > > worse with it so we decided to disable it.
> > > (I have been running with it enabled for years and for me stuff does
> > > look _way_ better with the bci ... but well this is a subjective
> > > thing).
> >
> > Take a look at the two screenshots I attached to bug
> > <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532>;.
> >
> > I think that, while it might be subjective, it's pretty clear that the
> > "without bytecode" version is much, much better for Inconsolata -- which I
> > spend my day using.
>  Depends on the criteria you use. The "with bytecode" version has better
>  kerning, better shapes, better flow, but is blurry (yeah, without
>  subpixel hintinting the fonts just are blurry and that's the main cause
>  why people say they look ugly). The "with bytecode" on the other hand is
>  perfectly crisp, but the shapes are worse, the flow is not so smooth,
>  some letters look a little deformed... With that said I use subpixel
>  hinting and I usually personally prefer the autohinter (but this one
>  depends on the font, some look better to me autohinted, some using
>  BCI...).
>
>  But generally, if font looks bad hinted when using BCI, it's most likely
>  a bug in font, but when BCI is not present we need to fall back to
>  autohinter, not just turn off the hinting.
>
>  Martin
>
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 07:30:56PM +0200, Martin Sourada wrote:
>  Depends on the criteria you use. The "with bytecode"
> version has better
>  kerning, better shapes, better flow, but is blurry (yeah, without 
Not just blurry, though -- awkwardly blurry. At screen resolution, in fact,
I think it's pushing it to even say that the blurriness makes better shapes
-- there's not enough pixels to make that work. The font has no bytecode, so
it's not being hinted.


>  But generally, if font looks bad hinted when using BCI, it's most
> likely
>  a bug in font, but when BCI is not present we need to fall back to
>  autohinter, not just turn off the hinting. 
Absolutely. I'm not opposed to the BCI, just opposed to failing to autohint
non-bytecoded glyphs when the feature is enabled.

-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

[Ilyes Gouta]

Hi,

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/07/19/1524250/FreeType-Project-Cheers-...

Are we going to have it enabled for Fedora 14?

-Ilyes Gouta

On Wednesday, May 26, 2010, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 07:30:56PM +0200, Martin Sourada wrote:
> > Depends on the criteria you use. The "with bytecode" version has better
> > kerning, better shapes, better flow, but is blurry (yeah, without
>
>  Not just blurry, though -- awkwardly blurry. At screen resolution, in fact,
>  I think it's pushing it to even say that the blurriness makes better shapes
>  -- there's not enough pixels to make that work. The font has no bytecode, so
>  it's not being hinted.
>
>
> > But generally, if font looks bad hinted when using BCI, it's most likely
> > a bug in font, but when BCI is not present we need to fall back to
> > autohinter, not just turn off the hinting.
>
>  Absolutely. I'm not opposed to the BCI, just opposed to failing to autohint
>  non-bytecoded glyphs when the feature is enabled.
>
>  --
>  Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
>  Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
>  Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 19:15 +0200, Ilyes Gouta wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>
> http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/07/19/1524250/FreeType-Project-Cheers-...
>  
>  Are we going to have it enabled for Fedora 14? 
It already is, in Rawhide. Upgrade an F13 machine to Rawhide and you'll
see noticeably different font rendering.

(Though it's really not as simple as that story makes it seem, which is
why we didn't do it for F13. Bytecode interpreting only helps fonts
which are actually designed with bytecode interpreting in mind. Some of
the fonts we use have been designed more with the use of autohinting in
mind, and look worse if you just use bytecode interpreting everywhere. I
believe the idea for F14 is to try and determine which fonts should use
which method in some way.)
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 10:26:53AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
>  It already is, in Rawhide. Upgrade an F13 machine to Rawhide and
> you'll
>  see noticeably different font rendering. 
See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532


>  (Though it's really not as simple as that story makes it seem,
> which is
>  why we didn't do it for F13. Bytecode interpreting only helps fonts
>  which are actually designed with bytecode interpreting in mind. Some of
>  the fonts we use have been designed more with the use of autohinting in
>  mind, and look worse if you just use bytecode interpreting everywhere. I
>  believe the idea for F14 is to try and determine which fonts should use
>  which method in some way.) 
Yeah. If you look at the "with bytecode" and "without bytecode"
attachments
in the above bug, you'll see Inconsolata become very ugly.




-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

[Trever L. Adams]

  On 07/19/2010 11:26 AM, Adam Williamson wrote:
>  It already is, in Rawhide. Upgrade an F13 machine to Rawhide and you'll
>  see noticeably different font rendering.
>
>  (Though it's really not as simple as that story makes it seem, which is
>  why we didn't do it for F13. Bytecode interpreting only helps fonts
>  which are actually designed with bytecode interpreting in mind. Some of
>  the fonts we use have been designed more with the use of autohinting in
>  mind, and look worse if you just use bytecode interpreting everywhere. I
>  believe the idea for F14 is to try and determine which fonts should use
>  which method in some way.) 
I think it is turned on, I love how it looks. However, it is a 2.3.x 
version when there is a 2.4.x version, the difference? I don't know. 
Should 2.4.1 be shipped? I don't know.

Trever