[Mageia-dev] why not disable bytecode interpreter in freetype2 ?

[Zé]

2011/5/13 Buchan Milne <bgmilne at staff.telkomsa.net>:
> On Friday, 13 May 2011 11:12:41 Zé wrote:
>> 2011/5/13 Zé <mmodem00 at gmail.com>:
>> > 2011/5/13 Dimitrios Glentadakis <dglent at gmail.com>:
>> >> Στις Παρασκευή 13 Μάιος 2011 00:39:55 Zé γράψατε:
>> >>> 2011/5/12 Dick Gevers <dvgevers at xs4all.nl>:
>> >>> > On Thu, 12 May 2011 13:20:39 +0200, Dimitrios Glentadakis wrote about
>
>> >>> perl -pi -e 's|#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER|/\*
>> >>> #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER  \*/|'
>> >>> include/freetype/config/ftoption.h
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> dont forget to also increase Release to avoid conflicts with existant
>> >>> freetype2, and then build the package.
>> >>
>> >> Why do all these things when you can simply add an entry in the
>> >> font.conf file ?
>> >
>> > Thats a fact, but hat should happen is that freetype2 should have
>> > bytecode interpreter disabled by default, since so far users prefer
>> > it.
>>
>> Seams Fedora choosed to finally fix it, it reverted freetype2 with a
>> patch to disable bytecode interpreter. ->
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532
>
> No, this is not what is covered in this bug report.

Yes, correct i miss understood what as the bug report about.

> Firstly, here are the non-problems:
> 1)The bytecode interpreter *can* make fonts look better, *if* they have
> hinting in the fonts. Not all ttf fonts have hinting, but AFAIK all the MS
> fonts *do* have hinting.
>
> So, historically, the recommended approach was to use the PLF freetype *if*
> you had imported MS fonts (e.g. from a dual-boot Windows installation).
Well i always avoid using PLF freetype and for what i have read in
ML's all the users that answered to it said that also avoid PLF
freetype.

So far for hat i have seen, all users prefered like fonts were
rendered wen patents were still valid...

> 2)The Freetype autohinter was implemented later, and improves things for
> unhinted fonts, but hinted fonts still looked better with the bytecode
> interpreter.
>
>
> This is the problem:
> 3)If the bytecode interpreter was enabled, auto-hinting was disabled (or,
> could be, for 'medium' and 'heavy' hinting settings) for unhinted fonts.
>
> The Fedora bug isn't about disabling the bytecode interpreter, but by still
> allowing auto-hinting for unhinted fonts if the bytecode interpreter.
>
> *This* is the right fix. Your insistence to *disable* the bytecode interpreter
> (leaving users with *no* options, in case they need hinted fonts) is the wrong
> fix.
Well this way users cant also set to have autohint, seams theres
always some app failing.

Why not having it disabled by default? users will always be able to
set their preferences about using or not autohint, but that way
ensures that all fonts are better rended.
All this came up after patents end in wich showed users how fonts
appear poor rended, until that point i didnt saw any complains about
fonts, and this is what should be fixed.

> But, thanks for the pointer to the bug, which points to the patches.
>
>> Why dont we also do the same thing?
>>
>> Since theres users complaining about it, why not solve it once for all?
>
> Regards,
> Buchan
>



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Zé