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

[Ahmad Samir]

On 13 May 2011 12:09, Buchan Milne <bgmilne at staff.telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> No, this is not what is covered in this bug report.
>
> 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).
>
> 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.
>
> But, thanks for the pointer to the bug, which points to the patches.

Anssi has already added that patch to the Mageia freetype2 package
about 2-3 months ago.

[...]

-- 
Ahmad Samir