[Devel] Re: my experience with 2.1.4

[bulia byak]

David, thanks for your update. I must say that it's *very* disappointing 
that your FT_LOAD_TARGET_SMOOTH was not included in the release. I can only 
hope that this decision will be reversed in the next release. Your 
comparison clearly shows that in the *_LIGHT mode, kerning is not only bad 
but *intolerably* bad. 

It's a very serious usability issue. Unfortunately I see the same bad 
kerning as in the *_LIGHT example in ALL screenshots of Linux distributions 
or programs that claim "antialiased fonts." And this is pathetic. It's I'm 
sure a major reason why everyone keeps claiming that Linux has bad fonts 
and usability. We *need* to fix this ASAP. Believe me, no one having  a 
slightest idea of good design or readability will take seriously an OS 
that can display the word "distribute" as it is displayed in the top half of

> http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dchest/rendermodes.png 

And the most appaling is the fact that we DO in fact already have a 
solution, thanks to David, but that solution is ignored! How can this be 
"subjective matter" is beyond me - you have no excuse for such bad kerning, 
AA or no AA, period. We cannot seriously discuss consistency of stem widths 
until we have such crazy gaps between letters.

So I urge every developer on this list, please, please, PLEASE enable 
FT_LOAD_TARGET_SMOOTH as soon as possible _and make it the default for AA 
fonts_. Sure, it can be improved further, and I applaud David for his 
continuing efforts, but even now it is light years ahead of what stock 
2.1.4 has to offer. 

Sorry for the rant. I do graphic design and such things really matter to 
me.

-- bb
-- 
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