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| Interview with David Turner of Freetype |
| By Eugenia Loli on 2007-06-28 21:39:35 |
| Today we feature a very interesting interview with David Turner, one of the main Freetype developers, discussing the project's past and future. These days, David continues his work in Freetype even after having been hired by Google. |
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| I gotta say |
| By Redeeman on 2007-06-28 22:58:19 |
|
i LOVE my fonts, i use freetype 2.1.9, and im really scared of upgrading, cause in my opinion, my fonts are simply perfect. Though its what other people call "fuzzy". in latest freetype, is it possible to get same rendering as i have now? i do not use hinting. |
 - Score: 2 |
| Ubuntu/Debian's fonts |
| By ubit on 2007-06-28 23:14:21 |
|
Whenever I use Ubuntu I always go into the Gnome font panel and set it to "no hinting". Otherwise the fonts are unbearable for me. Does anyone know why they don't just turn on the autohinter like Red Hat/Fedora do? Great interview BTW. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: I gotta say |
| By miscz on 2007-06-28 23:18:34 |
|
I'm using Freetype, XFT and Cairo I've got from this how-to http://ubuntuforums.org/showthre... , and fonts look way different. Without hinting they look very similar to OSX, with full hinting it's like Windows' ClearType but much better. http://img149.imageshack.us/img1... This screenshot shows text without hinting and with full hinting, it's using subpixel rendering. |
| - Score: 5 |
| this is how mine are: |
| By Redeeman on 2007-06-28 23:30:11 |
|
http://img528.imageshack.us/my.p... this is in KDE apps. and this is in gtk+2 apps(is is from xchat): http://img530.imageshack.us/my.p... and this is how i want them :) |
| - Score: 3 |
| High res displays |
| By Touvan on 2007-06-28 23:42:47 |
|
I can't wait until extremely high resolution displays are common, and hinting simply doesn't make sense any more. I suspect that'll start to happen even before that patent runs out. (only two years, I'm an optimist) :-) I'm also in the camp that prefers Mac OS X/Safari 3 font rendering (I even prefer Safari on Windows just for that - now if I could only remember my OSNews username/password which is stored in Firefox ;-P ). |
| - Score: 4 |
| Nice |
| By thebluesgnr on 2007-06-29 01:33:09 |
|
That interview was a nice read, thanks for posting. Only one correction though: Also, I still don't understand why Debian and Ubuntu keep distributing patent-infringing code in FreeType, while they keep MP3 and DVD playback out of their normal installs. I'm not even sure it's DFSG compliant... Debian installs MP3 and DVD playback by default. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: High res displays |
| By pepa on 2007-06-29 02:25:16 |
| Couldn't you just look the username/password up (Preferences, Privacy, Passwords)? The only catch is that it's not easy when you have loads of passwords remembered. I often let it sort on Username, because the Site entry is quite variable. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Good point about Mac Fonts |
| By bsharitt on 2007-06-29 04:58:46 |
| I personally like the OS X font rendering over ClearType, but like others I don find it a bit annoying on Windows for no other reason than it being different. Reguardless of what you have as far as font rendring goes, uniformity is generally a must. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Great |
| By predictor on 2007-06-29 06:49:51 |
|
David and the team are geniouses. I decided to attempt a port of FreeType to my operating system last year, and expected it to occupy a couple of weeks. To my big surprise, the code only depends on a small subset of C99 and plugging it into almost any kind of architecture and build system is really easy. I wish all coders was this quality minded. End result? My tiny OS has better looking fonts than Windows :-) Edited 2007-06-29 06:50 |
| - Score: 2 |
| Fuzzy = Better? Huh? |
| By Core Duo on 2007-06-29 09:47:52 |
|
The thing is, it's pretty easy to get used to the fuzziness While I respect and appreciate the work of David, I have a hard time being convinced by the fact that fuzzy fonts are better. Granted that fonts that use ClearType on Windows are reshaped and are not authentic, but at least they have better contrast. Unless you plan to write printed artwork in an advertising company, I think it's not worth having to pass through the fuzzyness punishment. I'm also having a hard time believing that he hasn't tried Windows Vista at least one time to see how fonts look like on the new version of Windows. After all, fonts on Windows has been a reference for many people. I've seen many requests on the Freetype mailing list to know how to make fonts look like those on Windows. He may not like Windows, but at least trying it would be interesting. |
| - Score: 5 |
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