Re: [dev] [patch] dmenu - support for xft font rendering

On Fri, Sep 03, 2010 at 08:56:22PM +0200, hiro wrote:
>> Admittedly, the newer auto-hinters do a decent job of this these days
>
>The freetype autohinter?
>http://freetype.sourceforge.net/autohinting/hinter.html#screenshots
>Perhaps this is outdated, but it looks horrible to me.

It depends on the font, but I believe it's gotten better since
that screenshot was taken.

>Hinting patents have expired and any distribution should now be able
>to include the proper bytecode interpreter.

I agree. My point was that the (simple) bytecode interperater is
not a bad thing. It's just the simplest way for font designers
to control how vector fonts are rasterized on low-resolution
media or in very small sizes. The auto-hinted fonts tend to look
much less like their printed counterparts than the designer
hinted fonts.

Before the bytecode interperater was introduced, the practice
was to use bitmap fonts for small glyph sizes and low resolution
displays, even for vector fonts, and I'm glad to see the end
of that.

-- 
Kris Maglione
Don't surrender your loneliness / So quickly.  / Let it cut more
deeply.  / Let it ferment and season you / As few human / Or even
divine ingredients can.
	--Hafez