Hi Beatrix,
my monitor is a Dell u3011 (30"). The native resolution is 2560*1600.
And that’s what my graphics card is set to.
I know the issue with the not-matching resolution on lcd-monitors.
Be assured that’s not the problem here.
regards
Hello Michel,
If you think so please have a look at this screenshots:
regards
I don’t think this is MS Sans Serif. It does not look at all like what I see here. Could it be that you have some font substitution active there ?
What you can do, is to turn off Cleartype on Windows 7. You will normally see no smoothing anywhere.
http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/turn-off-cleartype/
Note that on my machine, I have cleartype turned on, and I do not see at all with MS Sans Serif what you posted.
BTW : Here is WHY bitmap fonts cannot be antialised by Windows :
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd183433(v=vs.85).aspx
[quote]ClearType antialiasing is disabled:
Under terminal server client
For bitmap fonts, vector fonts, device fonts, Type 1 fonts, or Postscript OpenType fonts without TrueType outlines[/quote]
Hello Michel,
in a earlier post Travis already recommended the cleartype-switch-tool to me,
i quote myself:
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.
and:
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.
Aside from all the issues discussed about:
Until Xojo 2016r3 the fonts were perfect.
I never had any problem like this with any of my other programs.
No antialiased fonts show up anywhere. ONLY in xojo.
So it’s unlikely there’s a problem aside from xojo.
But if there’s anything i can still do i would like to try it because i
want to use xojo in the future.
I don’t know what to say. Before posting about bitmap fonts, I did try MS Sans Serif, MS Serif and Ebrima. None of them show any antialasing under Windows 7 and 2016R3. I did notice, however, that the font becomes effective only after the Options dialog is closed.
I have been devising both bitmap,and TrueType fonts since 1987. I have never seen real bitmap fonts such as .fon fonts manifest any kind of antialising whatsoever. The very way the Windows imager works with bitmap fonts is precisely that a pixel is lit or not.
Good luck.
Some windows use Cleartype-Text. You can turn it off.
Windows 10 makes people sick with their fonts, the internet is full of complaints.
If you look all day into the blurry type fonts, you kinda feel like being on a boat on the ocean.
That’s probably why i like my mac…
Hello Michel,
for xojo 2016R3 you’re right - no antialising.
2016R3 was the last version to show fonts without antialiasing.
Antialising started with 2016R4.
But i understand your doubts if you never experienced such problems.
All i can do (and did) is to describe exactly what’s happening here and to
take screenshots so you see it for yourself. What more can i do?
regards
I have reverted to 2016R3 for now under Windows. As it stands, 2017R1 is not usable for my current projects.
There is a bug in the 2017R1 Windows IDE.
47721 - IDE ignores bitmap .fon fonts in coding option
Michel Bujardet Today at 9:34 PM
OS: Windows 10
Xojo: Xojo 2017r1
Steps: - Open the IDE on a code area, for instance a button Action event handler
- Go Edit/Options, and click Coding
- Select a .fon bitmap font, for instance the very recognizable MS Serif
It is ignored.
Same thing for all the bitmap fonts I tried.
Expected Result:
Display uses the bitmap font
Actual Result:
The bitmap font is ignored
Workarounds:
None
I am terribly sorry ; I did verify that clearly when I select for instance MS Serif, which is very different from System, it was applied in versions prior to 2017R1, but not in 2017R1.
Today I got word from Xojo :
Summary: IDE ignores bitmap .fon fonts in coding options
Link: <https://xojo.com/issue/47721>
User “Stphane Pinel” has updated case #47721.
The following comments were left:
Status changed from ‘Needs Review’ to ‘Closed (Not Reproducible)’.
Report closed. This case was not ranked.
This case has been closed because our testing staff has been unable to reproduce the behavior on both 2017r1 and 2017r2.
I don’t know what to say.
You can always add info that helps us to reproduce the issue if you so choose
Attach a fon file that shows this issue - that will reopen the case as needing to be reviewed again
None of us was able to duplicate the reported issue which is why it was closed
2016r3 draws using GDI+
Draws using Direct2D and DirectDraw
At the system level these are very different and again this may come back to whether your machine is fully supported by the newer technoliogies
[quote=325666:@Norman Palardy]You can always add info that helps us to reproduce the issue if you so choose
Attach a fon file that shows this issue - that will reopen the case as needing to be reviewed again
None of us was able to duplicate the reported issue which is why it was closed[/quote]
I assure you I did not dream the issue. I filed only after thorough verification, with several fonts. My system has nothing special to it: run off the mill Windows 2010 Anniversary Edition.
Apparently I am not the only one, what caught my eye was Hans’ report.
I will work again at finding a way to reproduce the issue.
Check the updated note on the case I wrote to be clearer- DirectWrite (Direct2D) has never supported the old deprecated bitmap FON format. It uses best-known substitution. That’s why you might see something a bit different, but not the exact old MS Sans Serif from back in the day.
Travis, I very much appreciate your intelligent reply to someone who took the time to file a bug report, and was rather dismayed by the blunt closing statement.
So indeed it is possible to reproduce what I reported, but the behavior of Xojo has changed in such a way that it is to be expected. I suspected font substitution earlier on in this thread anyway.
Thank you so much for treating me as an adult.
@hans heiser , if you followed these latest posts, I am afraid you have very little options available. Either stay with 2016R3 and use .fon fonts, or if this is possible at all, switch to an HiPDI graphic card, so you get 192 dpi with 2017R1 and more.
I can attest that on my current system which is 3850x2550 scaled at 175%, fonts are very crisp.
Hi Michel,
that’s not the news i wanted to hear, indeed.
Anyway, i can continue to convert/rewrite my programs
from visualbasic to xojo with my available, from xojo
downloaded version (2016r3).
And when i need them (my plan is to switch away from windows
before the windows7 support ends), i will buy a license
and build the applications from my code written till then.
I hope i got that right.
If there’s a version available with unsmoothed fonts
then, i can also start programming other projects with
xojo. If not, i may have to take a look at other
programming languages for future projects.
It depends if 2016r3 is still suitable for future projects.
If only newer xojo versions support my needs and i can’t
use unsmoothed fonts within their code-window - i guess i
have no other choice than look for something else.
And about screen resolution: I’m well aware of HiDPI etc.
My graphics card already supports resolutions up
to 3840*2160 (or even higher). And i have already plans of
switching to another monitor with that resolution.
But that monitor will have a size of 43", that equals to
about 100dpi - like my current model.
I understand there are persons who like HiDPI screens and
font-smoothing. If they’re happy with that - perfect.
But there are also many persons who can’t bear with that.
They can’t read smoothed fonts and get dizzy from trying
to do so. If you search the internet for that topic, you will
find plenty***. And normally that’s no problem at all, you switch
it on or off - whatever you prefer.
Until now i haven’t seen any program wich i couldn’t use with
unsmoothed fonts - ever. So i’m very confident that xojo
will provide a option to use normal, unsmoothed fonts in the
future. I can’t imagine them to abandon all the potential
users who can’t bear smoothed fonts.
regards
*** for example, a fast google search brought up this:
http://annystudio.com/misc/anti-aliased-fonts-hurt/
My own 4K monitor is a 27". That is amply enough, and it does provide 192 dpi.
[quote=325776:@hans heiser]So i’m very confident that xojo
will provide a option to use normal, unsmoothed fonts in the
future[/quote]
Don’t hold your breath.
Windows 7 is now an old platform. For better or worse, Windows 10 is the state of the art one. All indications are that higher screen densities are on the way, 2x being a first step on the way to x3, x4 and higher. Instead of bitmap fonts, higher density screens will show crisp fonts in a manner not unlike present printers technology. For the record, a 1990’s laser printer had a resolution of 300 dpi. A 3x Windows Screen with 288 dpi will be extremely close.
For the moment, your best bet is 2016R3. I did not quite understand if you have a license or not. At any rate, when you get a license, you can use all previous versions.
A 43inch monitor is way too large. This will give you headaches because you will have to move the head too much.
Have you ever contemplated a move to the dark side - aka MacOS? The font handling is waaayyy better than for Windows. Ask a friend to loan you a machine for the day and you will see if it makes a difference for the head.
FWIW, here’s a listing of bitmap style monospace TTF fonts. http://www.lowing.org/fonts/
Many of the samples look very clean. Terminus for instance. Some of these may improve you experience. Shame to have to forgo Xojo because of font settings.