2:42 p.m.
With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
Not running it, just trying to keep track before going back to a rawhide
system like I do between releases (yes I help test, open bugs, etc.. and
aware of rawhide).
Thanks,
--
Mike Chambers
Madisonville, KY
"Everything is always harder, before it's easier!
3:15 p.m.
Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 19:42 +0000, Mike Chambers a écrit :
With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still
as
messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No complaints with Evo.
--
Nicolas Mailhot
12:28 p.m.
Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 22:15 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot a écrit :
Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 19:42 +0000, Mike Chambers a écrit :
> With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
> messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
> firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No complaints with Evo.
Well with fontconfig-2.3.2-1 OTOH rendering changed drastically
--
Nicolas Mailhot
3:18 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 19:28 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 22:15 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot a écrit :
> Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 19:42 +0000, Mike Chambers a écrit :
> > With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
> > messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
> > firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
>
> Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No complaints with Evo.
Well with fontconfig-2.3.2-1 OTOH rendering changed drastically
How?
I expect no changes from that.
On the other hand, once we get the next set of Cairo/Pango/GTK+ changes
into the tree, rendering *will* change drastically ... in theory,
it will be identical to FC4 at that point.
Owen
3:38 p.m.
Le mercredi 27 juillet 2005 à 16:18 -0400, Owen Taylor a écrit :
On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 19:28 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 22:15 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot a écrit :
> > Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 19:42 +0000, Mike Chambers a écrit :
> > > With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
> > > messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
> > > firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
> >
> > Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No complaints with Evo.
>
> Well with fontconfig-2.3.2-1 OTOH rendering changed drastically
How?
I expect no changes from that.
On the other hand, once we get the next set of Cairo/Pango/GTK+ changes
into the tree, rendering *will* change drastically ... in theory,
it will be identical to FC4 at that point.
Lines seem thinner, character spacing is degraded (some of them touch
when they didn't before). I'm sorry I can't be more specific, my eyes
are adapting and I don't have a pre-update control system to compare (so
I must try to remember a pre-yesterday system) but the changes were very
noticeable just after the rawhide sync. At least in evo, so maybe it's
evo-specific, but I seem to remember the Gnome panel changing too.
Regards,
--
Nicolas Mailhot
4:47 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 22:38 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le mercredi 27 juillet 2005 à 16:18 -0400, Owen Taylor a écrit :
> On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 19:28 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 22:15 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot a écrit :
> > > Le samedi 23 juillet 2005 à 19:42 +0000, Mike Chambers a écrit :
> > > > With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still
as
> > > > messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
> > > > firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
> > >
> > > Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No complaints with Evo.
> >
> > Well with fontconfig-2.3.2-1 OTOH rendering changed drastically
>
> How?
>
> I expect no changes from that.
>
> On the other hand, once we get the next set of Cairo/Pango/GTK+ changes
> into the tree, rendering *will* change drastically ... in theory,
> it will be identical to FC4 at that point.
Lines seem thinner, character spacing is degraded (some of them touch
when they didn't before). I'm sorry I can't be more specific, my eyes
are adapting and I don't have a pre-update control system to compare (so
I must try to remember a pre-yesterday system) but the changes were very
noticeable just after the rawhide sync. At least in evo, so maybe it's
evo-specific, but I seem to remember the Gnome panel changing too.
I don't think this is a change with the fontconfig upgrade, but it is
the versus-FC4 delta that the next batch of upgrades should fix.
Regards,
Owen
6:28 p.m.
> > > Fonts are still messed a bit in Firefox (size). No
complaints with Evo.
> >
> > Well with fontconfig-2.3.2-1 OTOH rendering changed drastically
>
> How?
>
> I expect no changes from that.
>
> On the other hand, once we get the next set of Cairo/Pango/GTK+ changes
> into the tree, rendering *will* change drastically ... in theory,
> it will be identical to FC4 at that point.
Lines seem thinner, character spacing is degraded (some of them touch
when they didn't before). I'm sorry I can't be more specific, my eyes
are adapting and I don't have a pre-update control system to compare (so
I must try to remember a pre-yesterday system) but the changes were very
noticeable just after the rawhide sync. At least in evo, so maybe it's
evo-specific, but I seem to remember the Gnome panel changing too.
Ah, 20-20 hindsight is always so frustrating.
(and I know that we could just reinstall all the bits and pieces from
before this change, but....)
I'm beginning to wonder (now) whether it wouldn't have been a good idea
to have told people that changes were going to be made to the font
rendering system and in an attempt to make sure things 'look' right in
the future, could people take a screen shot of various applications they
use regularly so that there is actually something to compare 'now' and
'then'.
No real chance of doing it this time (unless people are willing to
reinstall or downgrade (would that even work?)) but might be worth
noting for next time (as I'm sure there will be a next time).
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
8:26 p.m.
On 7/27/05, Rodd Clarkson <rodd(a)clarkson.id.au> wrote:
No real chance of doing it this time (unless people are willing to
reinstall or downgrade (would that even work?)) but might be worth
noting for next time (as I'm sure there will be a next time).
For the future.... having a tool that testers can turn on to take
daily screenshots at a specified time potentially with a specially
designed text-rendering dialog window on screen might be useful to
avoid the "i wish we could downgrade" scenario. The tool would keep
the dated screenshots in a directory on disk and when a user notices a
problem.. they can simply flip back through the screenshots and figure
out when the rendering changed and show you the comparison and if you
are really lucky they can show you the segment of the yum.log that
pinpoints which packages were updated in that timeframe.
-jef
3:19 p.m.
Mike Chambers wrote:
With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still
as
messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
Describe "messed up." The only issue I'm aware of exists when using
FC4-updates packages, which apparently happens in some occasions (some yum mirror picks up
the FC4 update changes before it picks up the rawhide changes?)
3:35 p.m.
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 16:19 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
Mike Chambers wrote:
> With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
> messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
> firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
Describe "messed up." The only issue I'm aware of exists when using
FC4-updates packages, which apparently happens in some occasions (some yum mirror picks up
the FC4 update changes before it picks up the rawhide changes?)
Do the fonts still render diff/not as good with the (cairo?) changes
that are taking place? In other words, do they still not look quite as
good from rawhide as the previous Fedora releases?
--
Mike Chambers
Madisonville, KY
"Everything is always harder, before it's easier!
3:40 p.m.
Mike Chambers wrote:
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 16:19 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
>Mike Chambers wrote:
>
>>With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
>>messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
>>firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
>
>Describe "messed up." The only issue I'm aware of exists when using
FC4-updates packages, which apparently happens in some occasions (some yum mirror picks up
the FC4 update changes before it picks up the rawhide changes?)
Do the fonts still render diff/not as good with the (cairo?) changes
that are taking place? In other words, do they still not look quite as
good from rawhide as the previous Fedora releases?
Still not as good? As far as I know, they have always looked fine. I've not seen any
complaints in bugzilla. Not sure where the idea is coming from that the quality of fonts
has been deteriorating.
4:23 p.m.
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 16:40 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
Mike Chambers wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 16:19 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
>
>>Mike Chambers wrote:
>>
>>>With a fully updated FC4 + full rawhide updates, are the fonts still as
>>>messed up as they have been recently, especially in evolution and
>>>firefox (even with the alpha one?)?
>>
>>Describe "messed up." The only issue I'm aware of exists when
using FC4-updates packages, which apparently happens in some occasions (some yum mirror
picks up the FC4 update changes before it picks up the rawhide changes?)
>
>
> Do the fonts still render diff/not as good with the (cairo?) changes
> that are taking place? In other words, do they still not look quite as
> good from rawhide as the previous Fedora releases?
Still not as good? As far as I know, they have always looked fine. I've not seen
any complaints in bugzilla. Not sure where the idea is coming from that the quality of
fonts has been deteriorating.
I'm not sure if anyone filed a bug report. Some comments were made on
this list (or was it testing) that the fonts were a little 'different'
and indeed some of the fonts were a little blurrier (IMHO). For
example, the '-' seemed to have a little blur on top of it.
However, Own popped up on the very same list (in responds the the very
same thread) and commented that things were still being tuned and should
improve.
I think it's fair to say that things have improved and that the fonts
look very nice now. However, this may be because I've grown used to
them now, but I don't think it is (since the '-' doesn't have a little
'growth' on top of it).
Most of the above comments are based on fact, with a little tongue in
cheek thrown in for good measure. ;-]
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
4:27 p.m.
On 7/23/05, Rodd Clarkson <rodd(a)clarkson.id.au> wrote:
I think it's fair to say that things have improved and that the
fonts
look very nice now. However, this may be because I've grown used to
them now, but I don't think it is (since the '-' doesn't have a little
'growth' on top of it).
Most of the above comments are based on fact, with a little tongue in
cheek thrown in for good measure. ;-]
Its very hard to talk about rendering issues unless we build up a
flipbook of screencaptures that show the differences between different
package builds in a standardized way. I suffer from the same
perception issue when it comes to rendering details.. I just fail to
notice rendering anomolies as problems and just get use to them unless
they can be pointed out to me.
-jef
4:52 p.m.
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 17:27 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 7/23/05, Rodd Clarkson <rodd(a)clarkson.id.au> wrote:
> I think it's fair to say that things have improved and that the fonts
> look very nice now. However, this may be because I've grown used to
> them now, but I don't think it is (since the '-' doesn't have a
little
> 'growth' on top of it).
>
> Most of the above comments are based on fact, with a little tongue in
> cheek thrown in for good measure. ;-]
Its very hard to talk about rendering issues unless we build up a
flipbook of screencaptures that show the differences between different
package builds in a standardized way. I suffer from the same
perception issue when it comes to rendering details.. I just fail to
notice rendering anomolies as problems and just get use to them unless
they can be pointed out to me.
Yeah, agreed. Perception is a dangerous comparison tool. ;-
The biggest 'tell' for me that things have improved is that the '-'
character now looks like it's a single row of pixels, instead of looking
like two blurry rows. This one stands out because I used to wonder why
Mac OS X handled it so badly given that 'their' font rendering was
supposed to be so good.
I will say this about perception of font rendering. I (until recently)
worked in a mixed desktop environment with graphic artists. Desktops
were mostly Mac OS X with a couple of Windows desktops and my GNOME
based linux box. Comments were made (and I had thought the same thing)
on numerous occasions about how damned fine the fonts looked on my
desktop and how (from those who knew) how well the OSS community had
done with the AA stuff. I was actually amazed at how often Mac users
would comment about how nice my fonts looked. (Kudos to Owen and team
on this!)
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
11:12 a.m.
On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 05:27:16PM -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
Its very hard to talk about rendering issues unless we build up a
flipbook of screencaptures that show the differences between different
package builds in a standardized way. I suffer from the same
I either was the original poster complaining about font rendering or I
replied to the original poster. I was going to answer to your request
for a screenshot when I would have had access to my Rawhide system
again, at the end of the day, but I was satisfied with Owen's reply, so
I didn't produce any screenshots. Plus, I don't use standard fonts, so
my report would have been not so easy to reproduce.
Anyway, I took the last screenshot I had for the system, dating back to
August 28th 2003, and compared it to today's Rawhide. I am not sure what
was in Rawhide on that day, but you can see some differences. You can of
course point out that pretty much every package on the system has
changed between the two screenshots. Heck, even the browser is not
exactly the same: Mozilla vs Firefox. Same for the themes used.
The image with the screenshots side-by-side can be found at
http://yax.uberh4x0r.org/cairoatemyfancyfonts.png (you probably want to
look at it on an LCD screen because of subpixel rendering)
On the left, the desktop before Cairo. On the right, the desktop after
Cairo. Compare for example the text "Applications".
The first difference I notice with Cairo is that subpixel smoothing for
LCD screens is never applied, no matter what the settings. Second, text
seems to look smaller now, probably because Cairo seems to ignore the
DPI settings. Even making the default size one point larger to
compensate for the difference, the text rendering quality is not as
good as it was. Third, some sort of hinting seems be always at work,
again ignoring the font preferences. With the font I use, ITC Officina
Serif, rendering is much better when no hinting is applied.
Look at the "T" in "Telescope" on the right. Or look at the
"9" in "87
of 96 comments". It's horrible. At lower point sizes, it gets even worse
and it becomes barely distinguishable from a 0. I really noticed this
while doing online shopping. What was actually a price of $199.95 looked
to me as $100.05 instead. Thankfully, I noticed something funny with the
rendered text before I placed any orders under the impression of having
found a real bargain. ;)
I know that this is Rawhide after all and that the Cairo/GTK folks are
aware of the issues involved. So I won't be complaining again until
FC5t1 is 304 weeks away.
What you say seems to call for some program that can automate the task
of rendering parts of the GUI in a reproduceable fashion, in order to
spot any regressions. Does anything like that exist? It would be nice to
have such a tool. Ideally, it would be fed Glade files or something
along those lines. It took me way too long to doctor that image in the
GIMP, it should rather be a matter of minutes or even seconds.
--
Rudi
6845
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participants (7)
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Owen Taylor -
Rodd Clarkson -
Rudi Chiarito