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

Fri May 13 17:28:24 CEST 2011

2011/5/13 Buchan Milne <bgmilne at staff.telkomsa.net>:
+> On Friday, 13 May 2011 11:12:41 Zé wrote:
+>> 2011/5/13 Zé <mmodem00 at gmail.com>:
+>> > 2011/5/13 Dimitrios Glentadakis <dglent at gmail.com>:
+>> >> Στις Παρασκευή 13 Μάιος 2011 00:39:55 Zé γράψατε:
+>> >>> 2011/5/12 Dick Gevers <dvgevers at xs4all.nl>:
+>> >>> > On Thu, 12 May 2011 13:20:39 +0200, Dimitrios Glentadakis wrote about
+>
+>> >>> perl -pi -e 's|#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER|/\*
+>> >>> #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER  \*/|'
+>> >>> include/freetype/config/ftoption.h
+>> >>>
+>> >>>
+>> >>> dont forget to also increase Release to avoid conflicts with existant
+>> >>> freetype2, and then build the package.
+>> >>
+>> >> Why do all these things when you can simply add an entry in the
+>> >> font.conf file ?
+>> >
+>> > Thats a fact, but hat should happen is that freetype2 should have
+>> > bytecode interpreter disabled by default, since so far users prefer
+>> > it.
+>>
+>> Seams Fedora choosed to finally fix it, it reverted freetype2 with a
+>> patch to disable bytecode interpreter. ->
+>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532
+>
+> No, this is not what is covered in this bug report.
+
+Yes, correct i miss understood what as the bug report about.
+
+> 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).
+Well i always avoid using PLF freetype and for what i have read in
+ML's all the users that answered to it said that also avoid PLF
+freetype.
+
+So far for hat i have seen, all users prefered like fonts were
+rendered wen patents were still valid...
+
+> 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.
+Well this way users cant also set to have autohint, seams theres
+always some app failing.
+
+Why not having it disabled by default? users will always be able to
+set their preferences about using or not autohint, but that way
+ensures that all fonts are better rended.
+All this came up after patents end in wich showed users how fonts
+appear poor rended, until that point i didnt saw any complains about
+fonts, and this is what should be fixed.
+
+> But, thanks for the pointer to the bug, which points to the patches.
+>
+>> Why dont we also do the same thing?
+>>
+>> Since theres users complaining about it, why not solve it once for all?
+>
+> Regards,
+> Buchan
+>
+
+
+
+-- 
+Zé
+