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

On Sun, Sep 05, 2010 at 11:02:58PM -0400, Kris Maglione wrote:
> I still don't think that the auto-hinter is nearly up to par with
> designer hinted fonts. For the fonts that I have screen and print
> varieties from different foundaries, the versions without hinting
> information look considerably worse on-screen (though better in
> print) than the auto-hinted varieties.

This all really depends on how you like your fonts rendered. When
Apple first ported Safari to Windows, everyone was screaming about
how the fonts looked like crap. The Apply way is to use little
hinting and respect the shape of the font glyphs, while the Microsoft
way is to hammer the font into the pixel grid so it looks sharper,
but also causes the original typeface's unique shape to suffer.

Personally, I prefer the autohinter since I've found that with
slight hinting it looks very similar to the way Apple renders their
fonts. I don't know if Apple uses an autohinter or the hints in
the font, but they certainly put a lot less emphasis on the hinting
and more on the shape.

Generally, if you like your fonts sharp on screen (Microsoft),
designer hints are usually the best. If you want your fonts to
look more like print (Apple), using the autohinter seems to work
better.

Not that this matters much, as I spend most of my time staring at
bitmaped monospace fonts.

Josh Rickmar
Received on Mon Sep 06 2010 - 05:28:17 CEST