Does the rendering system in JavaFX process font hints?

[Phil Race]

Hi,

There are no such configuration options available in either JDK 7 or 8.
The rasteriser used in FX 2.x is the same as the one used in JDK, and
it can process hints just fine. However it is not configured that way in FX

Java FX was from Day 1 (meaning FX 1.0) intended to provide a graphics
rendering system which was able to uniformly scale.
Hints don't allow the shape or string length to scale uniformly.

Switching to the native rasteriser doesn't change anything here.
In fact on OS X it actually means you are LESS able to request hinting
since with the original rasteriser we could have provided such a 
configuration
option to be used "at your own risk", but in FX 8 the OS X platform 
rasteriser
doesn't process hints at all and I don't know that you can do anything 
about it.

DirectWrite on Windows  may be more configurable, but I don't think we
request hints there either. Windows likely does process ClearType hints,
but generally it also is headed in the direction of unhinted rendering.

-phil.


On 12/2/2013 4:45 AM, Sybille Lein wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Thank you for your quick reply.
>
> Could you please give me some more information on the font engine in JDK 7
> as our software will be released with JDK 7 now.
>
> Is there any possiblity to configure the font engine in JDK 7 to process
> font hints on Mac OS X?
>
> Regards,
> Sybille
>
>
>
>
> From:
> Stephen F Northover <steve.x.northover at oracle.com>
> To:
> Sybille Lein <sybille.lein at zeiss.com>, <openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net>
> Date:
> 29.11.2013 15:24
> Subject:
> Re: Does the rendering system in JavaFX process font hints?
>
>
>
> Hi Sybille,
>
> Please try your code on jdk8.  The font engine in FX has been changed to
> use the native rasterizer on Windows and Mac.
>
> Steve
>
> On 2013-11-29 8:14 AM, Sybille Lein wrote:
>> I have some questions about the font rendering system that is used in
> the
>> JavaFX system.
>>
>> We are developing a JavaFX application with a customer owned font.
>> This font is a TrueType font and includes font hints.
>> There are usually two options for the font engine in operating systems:
>> processing hints, or running an auto-hinter.
>>
>> It appears to me that the JavaFX font rendering system ignores the hints
>> in the fonts, and runs the auto-hinter instead.It doesn’t invoke the
>> byte-code interpreter.
>>
>> My question is about how the font engine works with font hints on Mac OS
> X
>> and Windows?
>>
>> And is it possible to configure the font engine in JavaFX to process
>> hints?
>>
>> I tested it under Mac OS X and java version 1.7.0_17.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Sybille
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------
>> This message is intended for a particular addressee only and may contain
> business or company secrets. If you have received this email in error,
> please contact the sender and delete the message immediately. Any use of
> this email, including saving, publishing, copying, replication or
> forwarding of the message or the contents is not permitted.
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> This message is intended for a particular addressee only and may contain business or company secrets. If you have received this email in error, please contact the sender and delete the message immediately. Any use of this email, including saving, publishing, copying, replication or forwarding of the message or the contents is not permitted.