[Nix-dev] firefox 21 font rendering

[Mathijs Kwik]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Vladimír Čunát <vcunat at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/20/2013 02:07 PM, Mathijs Kwik wrote:
>>>
>>> From the screenshots, it's clear that firefox 21 uses subpixel rendering.
>>
>> The 20 screenshot only has grayscale anti-aliasing.
>>
>> To me, the 21 rendering (in your screenshots) looks much better,
>> sharper, clearer.
>
>
> The point is that with system cairo you get consistent rendering in the
> whole system. Now with infinality you can tweak the rendering style to
> anything you want (or switch it off).
>
>
>> But there are times when subpixel rendering does not work out well.
>> - On a VGA output - because it lacks (sub)pixel-perfect targeting of
>> output pixels
>> - Some outputs don't have RGB subpixel order but BGR
>> - When rotating your display, the default RGB subpixel rendering
>> should change to V-RGB.
>>    xrandr and other tools do not always detect this correctly
>
>
> I think all this can be set. CRTs do have sub-pixels -- I admit that
> subpixel rendering is not important there, but who really uses CRT nowadays.

Indeed I forgot to mention CRTs :)
But as CRTs have always had VGA connectors, they fall into the VGA trap.
VGA is not able to target each and every hardware pixel individually
(even after careful calibration). Not on CRTs, and not on LCDs. So
when a pixel falls between 2 hardware pixels the result gets smeared
out over both. This will look odd, especially when fonts were
subpixel-rendered.

>
>
> Vlada
>
>
>
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