Re: Fonts readability (was: Arial vs. Helvetica.)

[rhkramer@gmail.com]

Thanks for the reply!

It looks like you're right--getting this changed sounds like paddling upstream 
against a fairly high current!

On Thursday, August 03, 2017 11:30:35 AM Nicolas George wrote:
> Le sextidi 16 thermidor, an CCXXV, rhkramer@gmail.com a écrit :
> > > Even worse, the anti-aliasing is done wrong:
> > > it is done without taking gamma correction into account. That means
> > > that when 50% intensity is wanted, it produces 22% intensity instead:
> > > black-on-white is too thick, white-on-black is too thin.
> > 
> > Thank you for confirming something I suspected for a long time.
> > 
> > Do you know what program(s) is responsibe for the anti-aliasing,
> > against which a bug might be filed (or maybe a bug has already been
> > filed)?
> 
> It is hard to tell, there are several components working together, and
> they all will try to shift the blame to each other. I tried filling it
> years ago, and it gave me that:
> 
> http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13431
> 
> If somebody dares tell me that the way of reading text that I chose is
> "wrong", I think it is worthless to try to discuss.
> 
> The components in play are:
> 
> - fontconfig: at some point, the user needs to be able to tell that
>   gamma correction must be taken into account and what the gamma value
>   should be. Despite what kp wrote, it belongs in fontconfig, just as
>   much as lcdfilter or rgba.
> 
> - Freetype: it is the component that rasterizes the vector fonts,
>   including anti-aliasing, so it would be an easy place to adjust for
>   gamma. Unfortunately, Freetype does not know the color of the text and
>   background, its output could be considered an alpha map.
> 
> - The X11 RENDER extension: it is the component that performs the alpha
>   blending. It would be the correct place to implement the gamma
>   adjustment. Unfortunately, it has no provisions to do so.
> 
> - Xft: it is the glue that holds everything together. I do not think it
>   needs any work for this issue.
> 
> Good luck if you want to get things moving.
> 
> Regards,