[arch-general] blurry fonts at Qt4 apps
Hello I did send the follwing to the kde and qt mailing list: <my message> I have an issue with the fonts off apps which are based on Qt4. This png http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gtkkde3kde4qt4za7.png shows the "File" menubar entry at (left to right): gtk+ - kde3 - kde4 - Qt4 apps. As you see the fonts of gtk and kde3 are same. The kde4 and qt4 fonts are the same too. Please focus on the "F"s in "File". The "F" of gtk/kde3 are plain lines, since no curves are involved. The "F" pf kde4/qt4 has something like shadows, which results in a blurry look. Currently I'm running arch-linux, but I saw the behavior on previous gentoo and debian installations when I played with qt4. The screenshots which are placed at the kde4 programming tutorials show that there must be a way do make the fonts in kde4 behave like those in kde3 http://techbase.kde.org/images/a/a3/Introtokdetutorial3.png Just zoom and pan to "File" and compare with the screenshot I provided. My $HOME/.fonts.conf is attached. The font I'm using is Bitstream Vera Sans </my message> The mentioned files are attached to this email too. James Richard Tyrer answered: <answer>
This is interesting.
If you simply showed these to me without any context, I would say that the first two (left to right) are hinted for screen display and the second two are unhinted for WYSIWYG printing.
KDE-3 and Qt-3 always did fonts as screen hinted which is why some applications (e.g. KWord) had font printing issues. Since Qt-4 can do it either way, KDE-4 needs to decide which way that the fonts should be rendered. So, this would appear to be a bug -- the GUI should always be screen hinted. </answer>
So Qt4 apps maybe do silently the wrong type of font rendering. If you know about this and how to fix it on arch, please share your knowledge. Since there are configuration which are not hit by this (obviously James has one) I would like to ask you're to test if your installtion handles fonts on qt3 and qt4 apps the same way or not. To do so start the i.e kwrite(the kde3 version) and qtconfig (which is a Qt4 app). Pan the "File" entry of qtconfig's menubar to the right of the "File" entry of kwrite's menubar. Now take a screenshot (I used GIMP) and zoom into the "File" - "File" area. To make your results comparable to mine, please chose Bitstream Vera Sans as toolbar font. Thanks in advance, -- Maik
Maik Beckmann wrote:
Hello
I did send the follwing to the kde and qt mailing list:
<my message> I have an issue with the fonts off apps which are based on Qt4. This png http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gtkkde3kde4qt4za7.png shows the "File" menubar entry at (left to right): gtk+ - kde3 - kde4 - Qt4 apps.
Have you got anti-aliasing definitely turned off? DR
Am Dienstag 29 Januar 2008 00:35:27 schrieb David Rosenstrauch:
Have you got anti-aliasing definitely turned off?
DR
No, as you can see from the attached .fonts.conf </match> <match target="font" > <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" > <bool>true</bool> </edit> </match> I want anti-aliasing. The problem is that font rendering (which means anti-aliasing + hinting) in Qt4 are not the same as their Qt3 conter parts, as you see at the screenshot. -- Maik
On Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 00:27 Maik Beckmann wrote:
As you see the fonts of gtk and kde3 are same. The kde4 and qt4 fonts are the same too.
The only difference of my .fonts.conf to yours is that i have not the autohint block (okay, i use vrgb instead of you but this depends on the hardware). The good thing is that i have not this shadows effect but the only qt4 app what i have at the moment is eric. The .fonts.conf for kde3 and kde4 on my test partition be the same. Good luck, Attila
Am Dienstag 29 Januar 2008 07:14:32 schrieb Attila:
On Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 00:27 Maik Beckmann wrote:
As you see the fonts of gtk and kde3 are same. The kde4 and qt4 fonts are the same too.
The only difference of my .fonts.conf to yours is that i have not the autohint block (okay, i use vrgb instead of you but this depends on the hardware). The good thing is that i have not this shadows effect but the only qt4 app what i have at the moment is eric. The .fonts.conf for kde3 and kde4 on my test partition be the same.
Good luck, Attila
Thank you :) I switched to vrgb and how the shadows are gone. Even Qt3 and Qt4 font are now the same. However, the fact that the font rendering differs if rgba is set to rgb and do not if it's set to vrgb sounds like black magic to me. I would really like to figure out what is going on. Can you please try rgb instead of vrgb, just for comparison? Thanks, -- Maik PS: how can one figure out which rgba mode is supported by the hardware?
On Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 08:54 Maik Beckmann wrote: As i see your name: If you don't understand my "fantastic" english my natural language is german.-)
I switched to vrgb and how the shadows are gone. Even Qt3 and Qt4 font are now the same.
Nice to hear but a little bit strange. I must admit that after thinking too much about it i stop analyzing and differ only "looks good" or "looks bad".-)
However, the fact that the font rendering differs if rgba is set to rgb and do not if it's set to vrgb sounds like black magic to me. I would really like to figure out what is going on.
Good luck but this all with fonts remembers me at my first analog monitor which have a "Advanced Features Setting" where i don't understand the most.-) Only for the info here is my /etc/fonts/conf.d (The two *-MyDejaVu.conf differs from the originals only that DejaVu is on the top): 10-autohint.conf 10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf 11-no_autohint_for_bold_fonts.conf 20-fix-globaladvance.conf 20-lohit-gujarati.conf 20-unhint-small-vera.conf 30-amt-aliases.conf 30-replace-bitmap-fonts.conf 30-urw-aliases.conf 40-generic-MyDejaVu.conf 49-sansserif.conf 50-user.conf 51-local.conf 60-latin-MyDejaVu.conf 65-fonts-persian.conf 65-nonlatin.conf 69-unifont.conf 80-delicious.conf 90-synthetic.conf
Can you please try rgb instead of vrgb, just for comparison?
I do this and there was not such a difference as for you and i have definitely no shadows. The most and only difference is in the konsole (Dejavu Sans Mono).
PS: how can one figure out which rgba mode is supported by the hardware?
In a perfect world it is in the manual of your monitor. But as example i have a NEC 2190UXp (connected with DVI to a GeForce 7600 GS and driver version 169.09) and instead the manual says that it use rgb it looks better with vrgb. So i must say that in the most cases i prefer my normal try&error game: - start konsole plus 'ls -la' - change something and press apply - start a new - konsole plus 'ls -la' ... and so on This works better for me than analyzing it.-) But if you realy wants this here be the links which helps me in the past (i hope my suspicion that you can understand german is correct): http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antialiasing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontconfig http://wiki.unixboard.de/index.php/FreeBSD_-_Bessere_Schriften http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Schriften http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Schriftbild_verbessern http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fonts/DejavuFeedbackCall See you, Attila
Am Dienstag 29 Januar 2008 18:11:40 schrieb Attila:
On Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 08:54 Maik Beckmann wrote:
As i see your name: If you don't understand my "fantastic" english my natural language is german.-)
No problems so far, but I offer the same to you :)
However, the fact that the font rendering differs if rgba is set to rgb and do not if it's set to vrgb sounds like black magic to me. I would really like to figure out what is going on.
[snip]
Can you please try rgb instead of vrgb, just for comparison?
I do this and there was not such a difference as for you and i have definitely no shadows. The most and only difference is in the konsole (Dejavu Sans Mono).
Can you please send a screenshot, i.e. of qtconfig, to me off list? It might help me.
PS: how can one figure out which rgba mode is supported by the hardware?
In a perfect world it is in the manual of your monitor. But as example i have a NEC 2190UXp (connected with DVI to a GeForce 7600 GS and driver version 169.09) and instead the manual says that it use rgb it looks better with vrgb. So i must say that in the most cases i prefer my normal try&error game:
I did the same until now. I hoped there is a command which reads this info from the hardware.
... if you realy wants this here be the links which helps me in the past (i hope my suspicion that you can understand german is correct):
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antialiasing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontconfig http://wiki.unixboard.de/index.php/FreeBSD_-_Bessere_Schriften http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Schriften http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Schriftbild_verbessern http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fonts/DejavuFeedbackCall
I know most of them, except the fedora site. However, I will consult them again, thx! Best Regards, -- Maik
participants (3)
-
Attila
-
David Rosenstrauch
-
Maik Beckmann