Poor quality font rendering
John Hendrikx
hjohn at xs4all.nl
Thu Aug 22 12:59:14 PDT 2013
On 22/08/2013 21:24, Scott Palmer wrote:
> I just tried turning off ClearType on Windows and found that the result was
> pretty ugly. I assume that with ClearType turned off, the results should
> be comparable to what JavaFX is producing with grey-scale smoothing.
It depends on how you did it, if you turned it fully off it may not even
do grayscale smoothing... also the default font in Windows is not
suitable for this. See below.
>
> I noticed that the same web page rendered text differently between Chrome
> and Firefox - Firefox seemed to have darker text. So even among native apps
> you can get different results for the same font.
If you want to turn off cleartype in Windows 7, then just turning it off
is not sufficient. You need to replace the default font with Tahoma as
well as the Windows 7 default font (Segoe UI) sucks without LCD
smoothing. I can recommend the cleartype switch program, see here:
http://karpolan.com/software/cleartype-switch/
You'll want to keep smooth edges on, but cleartype off.
>
> Scott
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 3:21 PM, Phil Race<philip.race at oracle.com> wrote:
>
>> 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<openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net>
>>>>> [mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces@**openjdk.java.net<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<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
>>>>>>>>
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