Poor quality font rendering

[Phil Race]

John T,

Per a couple of earlier emails in this thread John H is deliberately 
disabling LCD text
so has grey scale, hence you can't compare directly with a native app 
since they all use LCD.

Any comparison has to be
1. Using the same string
2. Rendered in the same fashion : LCD or greyscale, hinted/unhinted.
3. Using the same font (face, size etc)
4. Using the same colours (fg&bg) and watch out for the UI controls - 
they used
to tweak your text colour so that (eg) black became dark grey, reducing 
contrast
which reduced legibility, thus also invalidating any  test. I am not 
sure if this is still the case,
but contrast is very important for text and you should make sure its as 
high as possible.

-phil.



On 8/22/2013 11:35 AM, John C. Turnbull wrote:
> Am I the only one who looks at that screenshot and thinks that the fonts look really bad and obviously different from a native app?  Its not just the Plot section, its all text on the screen.
>
> This is what I am talking about.  I wouldn't even describe the differences as "subtle" as to me there is a dramatic difference in quality.
>
> Can this be fixed or are JavaFX apps always going to stand out for all the wrong reasons like this?
>
> On 23/08/2013, at 0:05, John Hendrikx <hjohn at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> Those are all normal controls, the plot section is just a Label for example.
>>
>> On 22/08/2013 13:39, John C. Turnbull wrote:
>>> John H, it may be just me but pretty much *all* the fonts in your screenshot
>>> look quite poor and noticeably different from native font rendering.  If you
>>> look for instance at the text in the "Plot" section, to me that text looks
>>> awful.
>>>
>>> Is that inside a WebView or some other control?
>>>
>>> -jct
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net
>>> [mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of John Hendrikx
>>> Sent: Thursday, 22 August 2013 17:29
>>> To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net
>>> Subject: Re: Poor quality font rendering
>>>
>>>
>>> I took another good look, and I see what is bothering me is mostly how the
>>> glyph "2" is rendered on my system (it has a thick appearing curve attached
>>> to the base).  I've included a screenshot of my application that uses
>>> several different sizes fonts, but it seems only the ones in the top bar are
>>> rendered somewhat wierd.
>>>
>>> http://ukyo.xs4all.nl/Digit2RenderedPoorlyInTopBar.png
>>>
>>> I'm on Windows 7, JavaFX 8b99, 32-bit, using D3D pipeline (I get this stuff
>>> in log in an infinite loop, so must be D3D I think):
>>>
>>> D3D Vram Pool: 129,613,674 used (48.3%), 129,613,674 managed (48.3%),
>>> 268,435,456 total                   --
>>> com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:134)
>>> 75 total resources being
>>> managed
>>>
>>> -- com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:153)
>>> 4 permanent resources
>>> (5.3%)
>>>
>>> -- com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:154)
>>> 2 resources locked
>>> (2.7%)
>>>
>>> -- com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:156)
>>> 43 resources contain interesting data
>>> (57.3%)                                                             --
>>> com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:158)
>>> 0 resources disappeared
>>> (0.0%)
>>>
>>> -- com.sun.prism.impl.ManagedResource.printSummary(ManagedResource.java:160)
>>>
>>> I also have this in main, before Application.launch is called:
>>>
>>>       System.setProperty("prism.lcdtext", "false");
>>>
>>> In .root in CSS I have:
>>>
>>>     -fx-font-family: "Arial";
>>>     -fx-font-size: 16px;
>>>     -fx-font-weight: normal;
>>>
>>> So all the fonts you see should be Arial (but the sizes and weights are
>>> tweaked depending on location).
>>>
>>> --John
>>>
>>> On 21/08/2013 20:51, Felipe Heidrich wrote:
>>>> John H:
>>>>
>>>> In JFX we decided to go with sub-pixel positioned text (as opposite to
>>> pixel grid aligned).
>>>> That said, on Windows for grayscale text, we are not doing that (yet). Are
>>> you running Windows, with D3D pipeline ?
>>>> I would need to see a picture to be sure I understand the problem you
>>> describe.
>>>> Felipe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 21, 2013, at 10:19 AM, John Hendrikx wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think I also noticed a change in font rendering around b99 somewhere...
>>> the fonts seem to be thinner than before, or perhaps more poorly aligned
>>> with pixel boundaries.  I'd prefer glyphs laid out in the same way each
>>> time, ie. letters are always on a new pixel boundary, so the same letter
>>> will look the same regardless of what preceeds it.  I have LCD rendering
>>> turned off as I donot appreciate colored fringes on my glyphs.
>>>>> On 21/08/2013 14:53, John C. Turnbull wrote:
>>>>>> I have only really tested JavaFX extensively on Windows so my
>>>>>> comments here apply mainly to that platform.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It seems that even with a font smoothing type of LCD, font rendering
>>>>>> in JavaFX is not at the same level of quality of native
>>>>>> applications.  My current experiences are with JavaFX 8 b103 and I
>>>>>> find that all rendered text in JavaFX appears of a significantly
>>>>>> poorer quality than that which I would see in Word for example or
>>>>>> even in IE10 (which I believe uses the same text rendering engine).
>>> Also, these observations are based on text in "standard"
>>>>>> controls and the quality of font rendering is dramatically worse
>>>>>> within the Canvas control.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am not an expert in font technology but I have read many times
>>>>>> that the levels of antialiasing for text that can be achieved in a
>>>>>> GPU-based renderer are always going to be less than that achieved in a
>>> CPU-based renderer.
>>>>>> This is often explained on the basis of graphics card drivers being
>>>>>> optimised for performance and the rapid rendering of triangles
>>>>>> commonly required in games rather than for rendering quality when it
>>> comes to text.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is this the reason why JavaFX font rendering appears less legible
>>>>>> and of a lower quality than native apps?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If so, how does IE10 for example achieve a higher quality of
>>>>>> rendering when it seems to also use DirectWrite?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is the quality of JavaFX font rendering ever going to improve?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -jct