Poor quality font rendering

[John C. Turnbull]

I am still hoping someone can answer my questions on this topic (included
here for convenience):

> 1. When will both (1) and (2) make it into a JDK8 development build?
> 2. Are there any other plans/techniques to improve font rendering on the
horizon for JFX8 or later?

But I noticed something further which I think is a little curious...

It may just be an optical illusion but it definitely appears to me that font
rendering within WebView is of a considerably better quality than that in
other controls (such as Label, Text) in the sense that it appears crisper
and much closer to the native font rendering of the Windows OS.

So I would like to add another question:

3. Is this just my imagination?

I realise that it's WebKit that contains the rendering code but I would have
thought that the exact same Prism calls would be made from within this
renderer as would be used by other controls so I don't see why there would
be any difference.

Thanks,

-jct

-----Original Message-----
From: openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net
[mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of John C. Turnbull
Sent: Friday, 23 August 2013 17:23
To: 'Phil Race'; 'John Hendrikx'; 'Felipe Heidrich'
Cc: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net
Subject: RE: Poor quality font rendering

OK, thanks to everyone who has contributed input to this thread - it's been
most enlightening.

So, in summary, it seems that the dark art of font rendering is complex and
made more so by having to support numerous different operating systems, font
engines, GPUs and monitors etc.

I am sure JavaFX does a pretty good job already under most circumstances but
I (personally) hope things improve further in the future and that the gap
between JavaFX font rendering quality and that of native font rendering is
narrowed.

To this end, there seem to be two main improvements already under
development namely:

1. Sub-pixel positioning ( https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-14187 )
2. Kerning ( https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-7472 )

To assist me in my decision making and planning, would it be possible for
someone to answer:

1. When will both (1) and (2) make it into a JDK8 development build?
2. Are there any other plans/techniques to improve font rendering on the
horizon for JFX8 or later?

As I said, my focus is Windows 7 and Windows 8 at the moment so even if you
can only answer within these contexts it would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

-jct

-----Original Message-----
From: openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net
[mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of Phil Race
Sent: Friday, 23 August 2013 06:57
To: John Hendrikx
Cc: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net
Subject: Re: Poor quality font rendering

On 8/22/2013 1:23 PM, John Hendrikx wrote:
> Oh.. I forgot to say this, but...
>
> Screenshots taken with LCD smoothing on are always gonna end up 
> looking different on different monitors... if for example your monitor 
> has slightly different spacing or a different order of the subpixels 
> (or you rotated it), then the screenshot will look wierd.  I prefer to 
> keep LCD smoothing off as I make screenshots / videos regularly and I 
> donot know on what system they'll be viewed on.  So if one of shots 
> has particularly bad colored fringes, it is likely you have a monitor 
> that has a different configuration than mine.

Yes. I have a BGR monitor here :-)

90 degrees rotation also invalidates the LCD but it doesn't look as bad as
getting RGB<->BGR wrong

Devices like the i-whatsit and Android ones don't use LCD and I think that
is one reason.
OLED displays don't work well with it either.

Windows is deficient in that it doesn't provide anyway to set LCD on a
per-screen basis and it should. But most about every desktop/laptop is
normal rotation LCD in RGB format.

-phil.