lmo
27th November 2007, 01:59 PM
Time to do some venting about fonts
Why, oh why, don't they just have a button that says ...
... "Whatever dude, make it look good."
Time out to congratulate all the wonderful people who created
wonderful software that really works great.
Its just that you have to learn rocket-science to use it.
I couldn't ever quite understand everything about fonts.
Goodness gracious, I tried.
Not just now, but always ( ... except on windows ... )
I fussed with it like nobody's business.
Just when I thought I was making progress, something else went and messed up.
Yea, they've got buttons all over the place that you would think
that you could press and intuitively make it look just right.
But it doesn't work like that.
You start pressing these buttons and it seems like nothing happens
until you later realise that everything is all messed up.
Don't even try to put everything back the way it was.
It wouldn't probably do any good anyway.
So now, start doing some research on how to operate these darn things
and the first thing you have to do is to wade through all kinds of
technical documents that you will never understand and it wouldn't do you
any good if you did.
And then, you can follow about a dozen or two HOWTO's a day that will
wind up not doing what you expected.
!!! Nobody put this "autohint" setting in any of the gui's. Why not !!!
!!! Nobody says that "freetype" is "freetype2" but everybody calls it "freetype2" !!!
O, K!
Find a way to install msttcorefonts.
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net is one good source.
I actually put the msttcorefonts in my home dir under .fonts
O, K!
I got the bytecoder enabled.
Here was some notes for fedora ...
yum install yum-utils
yumdownloader --source freetype
Follow this guide http://fedoranews.org/hoyt/rpm/
... use --force ... if it complains
Use your-version of freetype instead of the specific version mentioned in the guide.
O, K!
Maybe you can get a pretty good result even without the bytecoder.
But not quite like windows, though.
( ... I never exactly thought windows ever looked perfect ... )
O, K!
I put this file in my home dir named .fonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- These I try with antialias -->
<!-- If want one/them bytecodered, move them below -->
<match target="pattern" name="family">
<test qual="any" name="family">
<string>Arial</string>
<string>Verdana</string>
</test>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<!-- turn off? patented byte code interpreter hinting -->
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>none</const>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- These I try without antialias -->
<!-- If no bytecoder, if these lousy, or want antialias, move them above -->
<match target="pattern" name="family">
<test qual="any" name="family">
<string>Andale</string>
<string>Comic</string>
<string>Cour</string>
<string>Georgia</string>
<string>Impact</string>
<string>Tahoma</string>
<string>Times</string>
<string>Trebuc</string>
<string>Webdings</string>
</test>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<!-- turn on? patented byte code interpreter hinting -->
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>none</const>
</edit>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
O, K!
Now I make adjustments to home dir .fonts.conf testing different
fonts under bytecoder on / bytecoder off and trying different
hintstyle and rgba.
Running the permutations ...
As they say, there is still a million things that can go wrong ....
For example, Ubuntu site uses Tahoma or maybe Arial, or what gets chosen.
I am trying Arial antialiased and Tahoma aliased, but I had to put
the Arial under the antialiased first because it seems to pick the
last one occuring in .fonts.conf of its choices when the .fonts.conf
is set up like above. A different setup may work differently.
More studying the document at http://fontconfig.org/wiki/ ...
One test to tell if bytecoder is enabled:
(assumiming you haven't messed with the font buttons in firefox)
(assuming you have the .ttf fonts installed -- same ones as msttcorefonts)
(assuming you are using the above .fonts.conf file)
Go to http://forums.fedoraforum.org
Regular text in Verdana looks pretty good (antialiased).
Table headers in Tahoma look crummy (aliased) - bytecoder is disabled
Table headers in Tahoma look like windows (aliased) - bytecoder is enabled
REDHAT, FEDORA, CENTOS, and crew ships with bytecoder disabled (I think.)
Others possibly including UBUNTU ships with bytecoder enabled (I think.)
I don't know,
whatever dude, just give me a button to make it look good!
Why, oh why, don't they just have a button that says ...
... "Whatever dude, make it look good."
Time out to congratulate all the wonderful people who created
wonderful software that really works great.
Its just that you have to learn rocket-science to use it.
I couldn't ever quite understand everything about fonts.
Goodness gracious, I tried.
Not just now, but always ( ... except on windows ... )
I fussed with it like nobody's business.
Just when I thought I was making progress, something else went and messed up.
Yea, they've got buttons all over the place that you would think
that you could press and intuitively make it look just right.
But it doesn't work like that.
You start pressing these buttons and it seems like nothing happens
until you later realise that everything is all messed up.
Don't even try to put everything back the way it was.
It wouldn't probably do any good anyway.
So now, start doing some research on how to operate these darn things
and the first thing you have to do is to wade through all kinds of
technical documents that you will never understand and it wouldn't do you
any good if you did.
And then, you can follow about a dozen or two HOWTO's a day that will
wind up not doing what you expected.
!!! Nobody put this "autohint" setting in any of the gui's. Why not !!!
!!! Nobody says that "freetype" is "freetype2" but everybody calls it "freetype2" !!!
O, K!
Find a way to install msttcorefonts.
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net is one good source.
I actually put the msttcorefonts in my home dir under .fonts
O, K!
I got the bytecoder enabled.
Here was some notes for fedora ...
yum install yum-utils
yumdownloader --source freetype
Follow this guide http://fedoranews.org/hoyt/rpm/
... use --force ... if it complains
Use your-version of freetype instead of the specific version mentioned in the guide.
O, K!
Maybe you can get a pretty good result even without the bytecoder.
But not quite like windows, though.
( ... I never exactly thought windows ever looked perfect ... )
O, K!
I put this file in my home dir named .fonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- These I try with antialias -->
<!-- If want one/them bytecodered, move them below -->
<match target="pattern" name="family">
<test qual="any" name="family">
<string>Arial</string>
<string>Verdana</string>
</test>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<!-- turn off? patented byte code interpreter hinting -->
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>none</const>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- These I try without antialias -->
<!-- If no bytecoder, if these lousy, or want antialias, move them above -->
<match target="pattern" name="family">
<test qual="any" name="family">
<string>Andale</string>
<string>Comic</string>
<string>Cour</string>
<string>Georgia</string>
<string>Impact</string>
<string>Tahoma</string>
<string>Times</string>
<string>Trebuc</string>
<string>Webdings</string>
</test>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<!-- turn on? patented byte code interpreter hinting -->
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>none</const>
</edit>
<!-- unsure this needed here -->
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
O, K!
Now I make adjustments to home dir .fonts.conf testing different
fonts under bytecoder on / bytecoder off and trying different
hintstyle and rgba.
Running the permutations ...
As they say, there is still a million things that can go wrong ....
For example, Ubuntu site uses Tahoma or maybe Arial, or what gets chosen.
I am trying Arial antialiased and Tahoma aliased, but I had to put
the Arial under the antialiased first because it seems to pick the
last one occuring in .fonts.conf of its choices when the .fonts.conf
is set up like above. A different setup may work differently.
More studying the document at http://fontconfig.org/wiki/ ...
One test to tell if bytecoder is enabled:
(assumiming you haven't messed with the font buttons in firefox)
(assuming you have the .ttf fonts installed -- same ones as msttcorefonts)
(assuming you are using the above .fonts.conf file)
Go to http://forums.fedoraforum.org
Regular text in Verdana looks pretty good (antialiased).
Table headers in Tahoma look crummy (aliased) - bytecoder is disabled
Table headers in Tahoma look like windows (aliased) - bytecoder is enabled
REDHAT, FEDORA, CENTOS, and crew ships with bytecoder disabled (I think.)
Others possibly including UBUNTU ships with bytecoder enabled (I think.)
I don't know,
whatever dude, just give me a button to make it look good!
