Re: [ft] Font rasterization

[Victor]

Hi, everybody

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:21 AM, Tor Andersson <address@hidden> wrote:

With regard to pixel alignment, it is certainly possible to render
glyphs with a fractional offset with Freetype. This is set with
the vector argument to FT_Set_Transform(). Sadly most UI
toolkits and all web browsers that I have seen make the assumption
that all fonts will be hinted horizontally and as such only calculate
the glyph metrics and positioning using integers.

-Tor

I have filed a bug for Qt to make this kind of rendering possible:

http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTBUG-10615

Some discussion ensued. A Qt developer stated:

> Qt tries to look consistent on the platforms where it's used, and this means that we will use font hinting on Windows, fractional metrics on Mac and also the default when using FreeType on Linux, which is font hinting. If we were to change this default, we would have most likely get several complaints that fonts on Linux have become smudgy, which would be a regression over previous versions.
>
> Qt's text rendering is mainly for UI purposes and we cannot attempt to compete with typographical grade text applications, so I'm closing this task as out of scope.

 And then:

> Rewriting the Linux font engine to use design metrics [...] seems to me as Qt trying to be something it is not.

Is hinting the default for FreeType? Does it need rewriting to use design metrics? From what I understand, the functionality's already in place, and it's just that Qt's not making use of it. Could some of the developers of FreeType comment on the issue?