hi,
i tested some xojo versions and want to buy the program soon.
There came up only one problem when i tested different versions of xojo:
Until version 2015r4 all the text in the programm were crisp and clear.
The next version i testet after that was 2016.r4.1.
There all the text (except the menus) was smoothed.
So i tried to set the antialiasing/smoothing off, but all options i found
were to change the fonttype and the fontsize.
Since i get a headache when programming with smoothed text
i would like to find the option where to switch off the font-
antialiasing.
Thanks in advance for your help
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disable-font-smoothing-windows
On Mac with Retina, or Windows with HiDPI screens, 2017R1 uses the HiDPI mode and fonts are very crisp.
Make sure your applications do so as well in build settings by switching HiDPI support to on.
Currently i’m using Windos7 and all font smoothing (like described in your link above)
is set off because -as i said before- i get a headache when working with smoothed fonts
(no joke).
Unfortunately xojo still displays the smoothed fonts even if all font-smoothing is turned
off on my Windows7.
How can i diable the font-smoothing (HiDPi-support?) so the fonts look like in earlier xojo-versions?
First, try 2016r3. That’s the last version before HiDPI was enabled in the IDE itself.
I also suggest looking at newer versions of Windows. Microsoft’s implementation of HiDPI has evolved over time and you may find that what you are encountering is actually fixed in a newer version.
I’d also like to know… is this all text in the IDE or just particular parts?
You’re right. 2016r3 is the last ‘normal-font’ version for me.
Just checked it. Thx for the hint.
The blurry fonts occur in the whole programm not only in parts.
Only exception is the menu in top.
But the most important part for me is the code-window. Staring permanently
at washed-out fonts causes me headaches (no joke, really).
There cannot be any fix from different HiDPI-implementations for me, since
it’s perfect without any antialising. The fonts are crisp and clear with
high contrast. Anything else is a disadvantage (for me).
Regarding your windows-suggestion: The main reason i want to
switch from visualbasic to xojo for my tools is, that windows7 will
be my last windows.
Windows8 and Windows10 are no options for me. So i’m in the progress
of switching all my necessary programs to linux.
What i encounterd lately isn’t good anyway: the linux-versions of xojo
all use the fuzzy fonts, even the old versions (tested on linux mint 17.3).
So if there isn’t a way to switch xojo back to the ‘normal’ font-display
i may have to use 2016r3 in a Win7-VM under linux :-/
But anyway, i cannot imagine there’s no way of switching the font-display
to non-antialised-fonts. I contacted xojo already and let you know here
what’s the outcome.
Windows 10 is much closer to Windows 7 than you may think. In fact, I think it is what 8 should have been.
[quote=325336:@hans heiser]You’re right. 2016r3 is the last ‘normal-font’ version for me.
Just checked it. Thx for the hint.
The blurry fonts occur in the whole programm not only in parts.
Only exception is the menu in top.
But the most important part for me is the code-window. Staring permanently
at washed-out fonts causes me headaches (no joke, really).
There cannot be any fix from different HiDPI-implementations for me, since
it’s perfect without any antialising. The fonts are crisp and clear with
high contrast. Anything else is a disadvantage (for me).
Regarding your windows-suggestion: The main reason i want to
switch from visualbasic to xojo for my tools is, that windows7 will
be my last windows.
Windows8 and Windows10 are no options for me. So i’m in the progress
of switching all my necessary programs to linux.
What i encounterd lately isn’t good anyway: the linux-versions of xojo
all use the fuzzy fonts, even the old versions (tested on linux mint 17.3).
So if there isn’t a way to switch xojo back to the ‘normal’ font-display
i may have to use 2016r3 in a Win7-VM under linux :-/
But anyway, i cannot imagine there’s no way of switching the font-display
to non-antialised-fonts. I contacted xojo already and let you know here
what’s the outcome.[/quote]
I’d say take a screenshot, but what I’d really like to see is a photo of your screen. I’m still not clear as to what the issue is besides what you are describing.
Another possibility is your video card/drivers. In 2016r4 Windows was updated to use Direct2D and it’s possible that your card doesn’t support it.
A screenshot would show the problem, i guess.
Where can i upload one so you can see it?
http://imgur.com is one I recommend
thx for the recommendation, put the pics on imgur. simple and fast - i like it.
http://imgur.com/a/l7hJU
I put the description in the pics, hope that helps.
I also added enlarged parts of the screenshots for better
visibility of the difference.
That is the basic anti-aliasing from the latest font renderers. You can try this tool (or something similar) to turn off “smooth edges for screen fonts” entirely on Windows 7 to see if that’s what is bothering you. You’d probably need to restart Xojo after changing the setting:
http://karpolan.com/software/cleartype-switch/
Otherwise, I’m sorry I don’t have any other suggestions for you.
Hi Travis,
thanx for your suggestion.
Every font-smoothing is already turned off since i installed Windows7,
but checked again with this tool for verification.
And aside from that - on linux xojo is showing the same behaviour
even though any font-smoothing is turned off there generally.
That’s what bothers me: all the smoothing is set off, but xojo uses smoothed
fonts anyway. I’m still waiting for xojo inc. to answer my official question
regarding this issue. I can’t believe there’s no possibility to turn that option
off, especially because there are many persons out there having problems using
smoothed fonts. I don’t think they will abandon all that users only because they
don’t offer a option to turn the smoothing off.
Or this users stick with an old xojo-version wich still supports the unsmoothened fonts.
Or they have to use a external editor and copy the code into xojo for testing.
It’s ok to bear with minor problems (even visualbasic had it’s flaws) if the programm is
good , but the readability of the coding text itself is essential and has to be perfect.
Conclusion: What i saw until now xojo is really a nice opportunity to build programs,
but the blurry fonts (with no option to turn them off) are a huge problem.
regards
In the default Windows folder, you will find both TrueType and matrix, non smoothable .fon fonts.
They often show as grey in the Fonts folder, as opposed to TrueType which shows as regular documents.
Fonts such as Ebrima Regular, FixedSys Regular, Modern Regular, MS Sans Serif Regular, MS Serif Regular, Small Fonts Regular, Terminal, are all .fon that should never smooth.
Hi Michel,
it’s nice that there are non-smoothable fonts, but how do i tell xojo to use them?
In xojo: EDIT -> OPTIONS -> CODING i can set the editor-font.
I choose fixedsys. No change, still smoothed.
So i guess that’s a truetype-font here.
When i search my fontpath (c:\windows\fonts) i find various *.fon-files,
but they don’t show up in the xojo-requester for the coding font.
regards
Well… I just tried MS Sans Serif 14, it is obviously not smoothed.
Make sure to close the options dialog so the change is effected on the editor.
[quote=325356:@hans heiser]thx for the recommendation, put the pics on imgur. simple and fast - i like it.
http://imgur.com/a/l7hJU
I put the description in the pics, hope that helps.
I also added enlarged parts of the screenshots for better
visibility of the difference.[/quote]
If you look at the window titles, you’ll see that the characters are to quite smooth. I’ve most often seen this on netbooks where the resolution of the OS is not set to an even multiple of the resolution of the screen.
P.S. - Travis and I are both from Xojo. Please don’t think that you are still waiting.
Hi Michel,
Here MS Sans Serif is smoothed 
But i tried other fonts and found at least 2 fonts that are not smoothed here,
but look strange (character width, character gap, line gap etc.).
The fonts are Gulim and MS Gothic. They are ttc-fonts.
So it is possible to display unsmoothed fonts. But unfortunately at least the
two fonts i found are not really usable because of the flaws i mentioned above.
regards
Hi Greg,
what do you mean the window-title characters seem smooth?
The title ‘Xojo - [amenu7…’ ?
That’s absolutely crisp here, also the normal xojo-menu, e.g.
File, Edit, View etc.
And my resolution is set accordingly to the screen resolution.
After all my research about the xojo-font-smoothing i can say
that absolutely all font-smoothing in my windows7 and in my
linux mint is completely turned off and that absolutely no
smoothed font appears anywhere except in Xojo.
Don’t recongized your tag, stating ‘Xojo Inc’ before.
Nice to see somebody from xojo here.
I understand that some persons like the smoothed fonts.
But maybe it’s an option to make it switchable, then everybody
is happy. It would be nice to have the possibility to turn off all
font-smoothing in xojo. But to have unsmoothed fonts in
the code-window only would already be a very big advantage.
regards
Can you check - just to be absolutely sure - what the resolution of the monitor is set to? Do you have access to another computer to check the behavior there? On the Mac it’s possible to indicate Retina with a setting in the app. Do Windows or Linux have something similar?
By the way: I had headaches, too, and had to set the screen resolution of my monitor from 2000 something back to the original 2500 something. The main reason for the 2000 something were the tiny fonts in Xojo.
I am starting to suspect that smoothing business has nothing to do with ClearType, but a resolution problem, or failing eyesight. It is technically impossible for bitmap fonts such as MS Sans Serif to be antialiased.
Time to invest in new glasses, or perhaps a higher resolution screen. With something like 3850 x 2550, you are in business, and up to date.