rawhide report: 20050121 changes

[Barry K. Nathan]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 12:41:30AM +0100, Enrico Scholz wrote:
> Nicolas.Mailhot at laPoste.net (Nicolas Mailhot) writes:
> 
> > A gtk port means fontconfig and AA ie all the users that do not use pure
                                                             ^^^^^^^^^^
> > american files on a 75dpi screen can get some mileage out of emacs
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > without ruining their eyes.

I've added emphasis here... think about people who are not using a
75dpi-100dpi screen. e.g. think about a 135 DPI (or so) screen.

> Ok, some assumptions:
> 
> * text apps used by me (XEmacs, xterm) are configured for 10pt fonts. I
>   want to see much information and do not want larger fonts therefore,
>   but fonts <10pt are too small for me
[snip...]

Are you assuming that 10 points == 10 pixels, or at least that 10 points
is the same number of pixels on all screens?

> * standard bitmap fonts for 10pt are of perfect quality (I am using them
>   currently and do not know how they could be enhanced)

Now, find perfect quality bitmap fonts that will display at 10 points on
a 135DPI display... IME, bitmap fonts for text editors are the height of
perfection on a 15" 1024x768 LCD and the bane of my existence on a 15"
1600x1200 LCD.

(Incidentally I no longer have the latter screen; it was in a notebook,
and when I replaced that notebook, I decided to give up some DPI in
order to have a built-in wacom tablet instead.)

> AA fonts might be ok for applications with large fonts (graphic or
> presentation programs, ogg players), but bitmap fonts are the best for
> pure text based apps.

On a high-res screen, a 10-point font has as many pixels as a 16- or
18-point font on a more typical screen... (Or even more if we're talking
about a 200+ DPI screen, although I've never owned one and probably
won't be buying one anytime soon.)

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn at pobox.com>