Prettier Fonts in X? 24
routecoder asks: "X11 is great, but one of its significant disadvantages is its treatment of fonts. Netscape in X11 is frankly ugly, fonts are chunky, they scale poorly making some sites are hard to read. Are there any good tools available to make X prettier? If not, what would it take to build more asthetically pleasing font support?" This has always been one of the largest complaints about X11 that I've heard from many Microsoft supporters. Is XFree86 v4 going to address any of these issues? How substantial would changes need to be to make font support in X comparable to or better than that which is in Windows.
TrueType Fonts (Score:1)
I think TrueType font support will be included in XFree86 4.0, along with anti-aliasing support.
tried xfstt? (Score:1)
erm, try xfstt. then you can use truetype fonts... I assume you've not tried that yet.
Sorry for the rant, long day.
p.s. How long has the "Post Anonymously" checkbox been there?
Microsoft true type fonts (Score:1)
URW fonts (Score:1)
Another common problem is that some X configurations have FontPath references to the 75 and 100 dpi directories without the unscaled keyword, typically at the end of the list of fontpaths. This leads to X scaling any 75 or 100 dpi font to fit if an exact match or scalable font is not found. Commenting out these lines should prevent this from happening. Netscape uses some odd sizes for the Times Roman font which doesn't help.
It may be a good idea to install the Gnome font viewer, part of the Gnome utilities. This will inidicate which fonts are currently installed, and if they are scaled or exact size matches.
Re:Microsoft true type fonts (Score:2)
I downloaded 1,500 fonts from somewhere on that list (I think that was my search term...)
Re:Microsoft true type fonts (Score:2)
http://www.fontfreak.com
It has fonts in
Warning on installing fonts for Mandrake (Score:1)
It certainly hasn't reached the drag-n-drop simplicity of Windows just yet.
Fantastic Mini-How-To (Score:1)
http://www.sfu.ca/~yzhang/linux /truetype/index.html [www.sfu.ca]
This got me up and running with True Type Fonts in no time at all.
Also, for a great source of more "way out" TTF's take a look at http://www.acidcool.com [acidcool.com]
Antialiasing idea (Score:2)
In an email conversation which followed the last Slashdot discussion about adding antialiased font support to X, I came up with the following [probably unoriginal] idea:
Why not create a hand-antialiased font by building it up out of multiple standard monochrome BDF fonts, which you overlay in the same location using different colors (greys)?
For instance, to get a simple antialiased "a":
BDF 1, drawn with color black:
. # # # . .
. . . . #
. # # . #
# . . #
. # # . #
BDF 2, drawn with color 50% grey:
# . . . # . . .
. . . .
# . . #
. . . . #
# . . #
The combined output:
x # # # x
. . . . #
x # # x #
# . . # x
x # # x #
The advantage of this is that it can be done entirely with the existing font drawing mechanism (just invoked multiple times).
Think this'll fly?
Div.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Some helpfull sites (Score:1)
XFree86 Font Deuglification Mini HOW-TO [frii.com]
The Redhat White Paper explaining the font system in rh6.0 [redhat.com]
good luck
Re:TrueType Fonts (Score:1)
Re:Fantastic Mini-How-To (Score:1)
Re:TrueType Fonts (Score:1)
*** t1asm.c Sun May 23 13:36:48 1999
--- t1asm.c.new Tue Sep 14 11:10:11 1999
***************
*** 85,92 ****
typedef unsigned char byte;
! FILE *ifp = stdin;
! FILE *ofp = stdout;
static int pfb = 0;
--- 85,92 ----
typedef unsigned char byte;
! FILE *ifp;
! FILE *ofp;
static int pfb = 0;
--
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow)
Re:Warning on installing fonts for Mandrake (Score:1)
Scaled and unscaled instances of fonts (Score:1)
Regarding the scaled bitmap fonts stuff:
the correct order for the FontPaths in
Why this?
Because this way X serves the the unscaled font first (which is faster than the scalable one), but only if the exact size required is available.
Else, X looks for the scalable font of the same name and serves it.
BUT, if the scalable font can't be found and there is a bitmap font with the right name and not the right size, then X scales the bitmap font of the closest size to the one requested and serves it.
Il's always better than a blank window! ;-)
-- bond (bond-AT-numerica.it)
A Possible Solution (Score:1)
I'm sorry. What I meant to say was 'please excuse me.'
what came out of my mouth was 'Move or I'll kill you!'
Re:Microsoft true type fonts (Score:1)