4 ms·
No hinting? Isn't that bound to be ugly? I read some stuff from Behdad Esfahbod [0], author of Harfbuzz and thus one direct layer above Freetype. One article [
by qznc 7y ago
No hinting?
Isn't that bound to be ugly? I read some stuff from Behdad Esfahbod [0], author of Harfbuzz and thus one direct layer above Freetype. One article [1] illustrates well how ugly "iiiiiiiiiiii" will look without hinting on LowDPI. For HiDPI it says you need subpixel-positioned text which would be the job of the layer above libschrift, I guess.
[0] http://behdad.org/ http://behdad.org/
[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wpzgGMqXgit6FBVaO76epnnFC_rQPdVKswrDQWyqO1M/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wpzgGMqXgit6FBVaO76epnnF...
- crazygringo 7y agoHinting is only necessary on low-DPI displays and/or when there's no antialiasing. Given that people mostly own high-DPI displays these days with font libraries that do antialiasing, there's essentially no need for hinting, and subpixel rendering is more trouble than it's worth (which is why Apple removed it from macOS once Retina displays became the norm). Supporting hinting in a new font rendering library feels... pretty backwards-looking to me. Granted this is a matter of subjective aesthetic opinion, but on high-DPI the lack of hinting isn't even remotely "ugly". To the contrary, it ensures greater fidelity to the letterform, while hinting necessarily distorts proportions. (Also, the example with the 'iii's has nothing to do with hinting or even subpixel rendering [when edges of black text are in blue and red], but rather subpixel positioning. Anti-aliasing alone handles subpixel positioning perfectly well. But once again, physical subpixel positioning becomes less important on high-DPI, though logical subpixel positioning is still very important.)