Re: [ft] rendering changes 2.1.10 -> 2.2.1

[Gordon Messmer]

I apologize for the delay in testing CVS.  I've finally gotten time to 
do a bit more testing.

David Turner wrote:
> thanks for the clarification; it seems that you're saying that:
>
> A) "light" hinting now produces fuzzy glyphs
> B) "medium" hinting used to provide better output that previously

"medium" hinting used to provide better output than it does now, yes.

> well, first of all, A) is purely intentional since we modified the
> algorithm to get results that are consistently closer to the original
> shapes than previously. The result is indeed fuzzier, though this is
> minimized when using proper LCD filtering. This is also more or less
> equivalent to what you get on Mac OS X

I guess I don't care much about that.  I think the results for "light" 
hinting under 2.1 were better, but I use "medium" hinting, via Gnome's 
"Best Shapes" setting (or, at least, I'd like to...)

> for B), I'm quite surprised because the algorithm for medium hinting
> in FreeType didn't really change between these two versions. Besides,
> I'm more interested in knowing what you think about the current CVS
> hinting changes

Well, then, what else can I look at that might have changed?  I've tried 
CVS, and in some cases it's closer to freetype 2.1's good results, but 
mostly not.  In the attached screenshot, the terminals are rendered with 
FC5's libfreetype, FC6's freetype, and CVS freetype, top to bottom.

Zoom in... The 'g' character is vertically squished in both freetype 
2.2.1 and CVS.  The vertical stem of the r is wide in both freetype 
2.2.1 and CVS, making the character look fuzzy.  The bold 'h' is also 
too wide.  The bold 'l' was much more solid under 2.1.

Let me know what else I can test...  Hopefully I'll have more time to do 
it now.