Changeset f98db52 for x/installing/tuning-fontconfig.xml

Timestamp:

11/25/2023 02:20:45 AM (7 months ago)

Author:

Ken Moffat <ken@…>

Branches:

12.1, ken/TL2024, ken/tuningfonts, lazarus, plabs/newcss, python3.11, rahul/power-profiles-daemon, trunk, xry111/llvm18

Children:

9fc45066

Parents:

9d8ea23

Message:

tuningfonts: Update details about hinting.

A lot of the information which shows up in google, particularly from
Arch users, is for using the Infinality True Type interpreter. Let
people read the history from FreeType.

Also confirm, from a posting this month, that medium hinting is broken.

File:

• x/installing/tuning-fontconfig.xml (modified) (3 diffs)

x/installing/tuning-fontconfig.xml

@@ -421 +421 @@
     character-cell grid but at the cost of its proper shape.
 
-    hintmedium: poorly documented, maybe a synonym for hintfull.
+    hintmedium: is reported to be broken.
     hintslight is the default: - supposed to be more fuzzy but retains shape.
 
@@ -443 +443 @@
 
     <para>
-      You will now need to edit the file in your preferred editor.
-    </para>
+      You will now need to edit the file in your preferred editor. Many of the
+      different settings give very subtle differences and the results may differ
+      for some of the fonts you use.
+    </para>
+
+    <note>
+      <para>
+        Hinting, if enabled, is done in <application>FreeType</application>.
+        Since FreeType-2.7 the default TrueType interpreter is v40. The
+        original v35 hinter could be enabled by an environment variable, but
+        is only really appropriate to original Microsoft TTF fonts (Arial, etc).
+        The v38 hinter (Infinality) is not built by default and all the options
+        to tune it have been removed. For full details see <xref
+        linkend="subpixel-hinting"/> (Spoiler: there is NO sub-pixel hinting,
+        the code simply ignores <emphasis>all</emphasis> horizontal hinting
+        instructions.
+      </para>
+    </note>
 
     <para>
@@ -845 +861 @@
     </para>
 
+    <bridgehead renderas="sect3" id="subpixel-hinting"
+    xreflabel="subpixel-hinting">subpixel-hinting</bridgehead>
+
+    <para>The documentation of the FreeType v40 interpreter at <ulink
+      url="https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/hinting/subpixel-hinting.html">freetype
+      docs</ulink>
+      explains how the current hinter works, and why the previous (slow) Infinality
+      interpreter was replaced.
+    </para>
+
     <bridgehead renderas="sect3" id="arch-fontconfig"
     xreflabel="Fontconfig in the Arch wiki">Fontconfig in the Arch wiki</bridgehead>