The crisp fonts saga

[John Neffenger]

On 12/12/23 6:10 AM, Mark Raynsford wrote:
> I've never been particularly satisfied with the font rendering in
> JavaFX. In particular, on Linux, the text always appears very soft and
> blurry compared to non-JavaFX applications on the same system.

Here's the best source I've found for the history of JavaFX text 
rendering. It's a presentation by Felipe Heidrich who worked on the 
implementation and now works at Google.

JavaFX Text Rendering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCrCni6EVek

It's frustratingly short on details about the specific decision not to 
use hinting on Linux, but you can hear his opinions on the matter. In 
particular, see the following sections:

Text Rendering Options
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCrCni6EVek&t=911

Hinting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCrCni6EVek&t=1607

Linux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCrCni6EVek&t=2716

In this part he says only, "Another thing you can do in Freetype, you 
can tell it not to hint."

My main point in my previous message was that, in the unlikely event 
that we were to apply hinting in JavaFX on Linux, I would hope that we 
use the "slight" hinting that is recommended by Freetype. That snaps to 
the pixel grid only vertically, preserving the inter-glyph spacing of 
horizontal text.

Kevin and Phil, were you working with Felipe when these text rendering 
decisions were made almost 10 years ago? Do you recall any background 
information on the design choices?

Thanks,
John