6 ms·

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font ren

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font rendering.

smoldesu 5y ago
If you think that looks bad, wait until you see what GTK4 was stuck looking like for the first 10 months of it's life cycle: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787
naoqj 5y ago
I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.
- von_lohengramm 5y ago
  Linux font rendering has come a long way in the last couple years. With TrueType2 and Windows fonts taken from an installer ISO (and not the ancient corefonts package), you can actually get some overall mostly okay font rendering. Every now and again, the hinting bugs out and it looks unreadable, but its far better than the olden days.
  - eMSF 5y ago
    What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? And how would installing those newer Microsoft fonts affect font rendering elsewhere than where they are used (not at all by the desktop environment by default, and as to web sites, it depends on what you use)? IIRC the last big-ish change for me was around 15 years ago when some patent-encumbered patches were enabled by default by (some) Linux distributions. Which is okay for me because overall I think freetype font rendering is better than that in Windows with most fonts, the arguable exception being certain Microsoft fonts – however, freetype has the additional advantage that it rarely if ever produces pixelated ugliness with unhinted webfonts, unlike what I've seen happening with Windows.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      > What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? Some subpixel rendering techniques became unencumbered quite recently. So newer versions of freetype should have nicer subpixel rendering enabled by default.
- TillE 5y ago
  Maybe there's some configuration magic you can do, but I don't think I've ever seen decent font rendering on a Linux distro out of the box. It's one of the biggest reasons I've never switched to desktop Linux, and I'm not even one of those super picky people who talk about the intricacies of typefaces all day.
  - kasabali 5y ago
    Ubuntu's font rendering is really good in its stock configuration. But I understand libre licensed typefaces it ships with might not be to everyones liking.
tomduncalf 5y ago
Interesting, I always disliked Windows font rendering and much prefer the was MacOS renders fonts. I couldn’t explain why, but I know many graphic designers who say the same. I guess it’s a matter of taste!
- von_lohengramm 5y ago
  Any font rendering looks amazing on HiDPI panels. Have you ever used macOS on a normal monitor? The text looks worse than anything else.
  - mikl 5y ago
    For some value of “normal”. 4K (or better) monitors have long since become the choice for most of those who cares about how font rendering looks. After a decade of “retina” screens, I’m ruined, I can’t stand the look of anti-aliased fonts, whether Windows, Linux or macOS.
    - von_lohengramm 5y ago
      > 4K (or better) monitors have long since become the choice for most of those who cares about how font rendering looks. This is the hardware solution to something that can be solved in software. If your game is laggy, of course upgrading to a 3090 is going to help, but that doesn't mean you're solving the problem.
      - azornathogron 5y ago
        It can't be solved in software, due to the Nyquist limit: Sharp high-contrast edges (text) necessarily have high frequencies, and you need a high sampling rate (pixel density) to produce a good approximation of that signal. People have spent a lot of effort to push anti-aliasing techniques as far as they can go, but displays with higher pixel density are just better for displaying text. I agree that if you are making something and your target audience will be using non-HiDPI displays, then you should actually design your thing on those displays too. But no matter how good your software is, pixel density places a limit on what you can achieve.

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font rendering.

smoldesu 5y ago

If you think that looks bad, wait until you see what GTK4 was stuck looking like for the first 10 months of it's life cycle: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787

naoqj 5y ago

I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.

von_lohengramm 5y ago
Linux font rendering has come a long way in the last couple years. With TrueType2 and Windows fonts taken from an installer ISO (and not the ancient corefonts package), you can actually get some overall mostly okay font rendering. Every now and again, the hinting bugs out and it looks unreadable, but its far better than the olden days.
- eMSF 5y ago
  What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? And how would installing those newer Microsoft fonts affect font rendering elsewhere than where they are used (not at all by the desktop environment by default, and as to web sites, it depends on what you use)? IIRC the last big-ish change for me was around 15 years ago when some patent-encumbered patches were enabled by default by (some) Linux distributions. Which is okay for me because overall I think freetype font rendering is better than that in Windows with most fonts, the arguable exception being certain Microsoft fonts – however, freetype has the additional advantage that it rarely if ever produces pixelated ugliness with unhinted webfonts, unlike what I've seen happening with Windows.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? Some subpixel rendering techniques became unencumbered quite recently. So newer versions of freetype should have nicer subpixel rendering enabled by default.
TillE 5y ago
Maybe there's some configuration magic you can do, but I don't think I've ever seen decent font rendering on a Linux distro out of the box. It's one of the biggest reasons I've never switched to desktop Linux, and I'm not even one of those super picky people who talk about the intricacies of typefaces all day.
- kasabali 5y ago
  Ubuntu's font rendering is really good in its stock configuration. But I understand libre licensed typefaces it ships with might not be to everyones liking.

tomduncalf 5y ago

Interesting, I always disliked Windows font rendering and much prefer the was MacOS renders fonts. I couldn’t explain why, but I know many graphic designers who say the same. I guess it’s a matter of taste!

von_lohengramm 5y ago
Any font rendering looks amazing on HiDPI panels. Have you ever used macOS on a normal monitor? The text looks worse than anything else.
- mikl 5y ago
  For some value of “normal”. 4K (or better) monitors have long since become the choice for most of those who cares about how font rendering looks. After a decade of “retina” screens, I’m ruined, I can’t stand the look of anti-aliased fonts, whether Windows, Linux or macOS.
  - von_lohengramm 5y ago
    > 4K (or better) monitors have long since become the choice for most of those who cares about how font rendering looks. This is the hardware solution to something that can be solved in software. If your game is laggy, of course upgrading to a 3090 is going to help, but that doesn't mean you're solving the problem.
    - azornathogron 5y ago
      It can't be solved in software, due to the Nyquist limit: Sharp high-contrast edges (text) necessarily have high frequencies, and you need a high sampling rate (pixel density) to produce a good approximation of that signal. People have spent a lot of effort to push anti-aliasing techniques as far as they can go, but displays with higher pixel density are just better for displaying text. I agree that if you are making something and your target audience will be using non-HiDPI displays, then you should actually design your thing on those displays too. But no matter how good your software is, pixel density places a limit on what you can achieve.