Hello nixers,
This thread stems from conversations I've had with freem on IRC.

I was wondering about the Freetype2 drivers properties and which one actually did something. So I pushed my research in an article.

I then continued in the article to show visually the difference between all the confusing settings.

The most fun part was building the last fontconfig script. For those unaware, fontconfig has a very powerful xml scripting feature with conditional operators and variables. I've left the conf at the end as an example to make Windows fonts look better (on my machine at least).

I'm still wondering why there aren't good GUIs to manage fonts. All the ones I see are missing a lot of features.
Maybe it's a case of: Nobody can do it better than yourself. And I would have to write it. I'll put this on my TODO list in all cases.

What do you think?
Have you ever used fontconfig like that?
Did you know freetype had so many toggles?

Ah, so it’s mostly about making Windows fonts look better. Do you have a comparison screenshot, before and after?

Sadly, I was already forced to deal with most of this, because at some point in the past the font rendering in my status bars started to look horrible. I now have to use settings that enabled very strong hinting, anything else just looks like garbage:

https://www.uninformativ.de/git/infofeld...E.html#l70

But I must only set $FREETYPE_PROPERTIES for the processes that run the bars (launcher). Overall, the new interpreter v40 produces better result.

I didn’t know that fontconfig can filter per program. That might come in very handy in the future.


– edit: At the end of the day, what we/I need is more pixels. These are all hacky workarounds.

(14-09-2020, 09:37 AM)vain Wrote: Ah, so it’s mostly about making Windows fonts look better. Do you have a comparison screenshot, before and after?

I do, the whole article is filled with the example of Times New Roman.

It was mostly meant as a proof of concept or case study, I didn't write the article specifically for Windows fonts but to show what's possible in general.

(14-09-2020, 11:29 AM)venam Wrote: I do, the whole article is filled with the example of Times New Roman.

Ouch. Idiot me. Nothing to see, move along.