[TxMt] Re: Font rendering with antialiasing turned off

[Torsten Walter]

Martin Ballaschk wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I noticed a problem with non-antialiased "programming" fonts being
> rendered in a strange way in my TextMate 1.5.8 (1498). Some letters will
> look wrong and blend with neighbouring characters.
> 
> Example screenshot for Consolas (11pt) with highlighted problem zones,
> note the distorted dot on the i and the blending e and {:
> http://www.quicksnapper.com/ballaschk/image/consolas-11pt/
> 
> Example screenshot for Pragmata (11pt) with highlighted problem zones,
> note the distorted "g", "w" and "s":
> http://www.quicksnapper.com/ballaschk/image/pragmata-11pt/
> 
> Monaco looks great, but makes it too hard for me to differentiate between
> certain characters:
> http://www.quicksnapper.com/ballaschk/image/monaco-9pt
> 
> I did not test with Profont or other small-size optimized fonts, but will
> do soon. Do you experience the same problems? Any hints how to correct it?
> 
> Cheers
> Martin
> 

Hi, I have started to use TextMate with non-antialiased fonts lately and ran
into similar problems with some fonts.

Mostly this is probably due to hinting (or the lack thereof) of fonts.

I noticed that certain fonts work best with certain sizes:
ProFont works best for me in 9pt and 11pt.
Envy Code R works best from 11pt up.
Liberation Mono works best in 10pt and from 12pt up but looks a bit odd in
11pt.
Andale Mono mashes letters together in anything lower than 11pt.
OCR A (while not a coding font it's fixed width) looks really strange in
12pt to 14pt due to the odd line thickness.

Overall I had the best experience with ProFont, Liberation Mono and Envy
Code R in terms of readability and character "cleanliness" at a small size
with no AA.

The blending you saw in consolas with e and { are probably due to the fact
that e takes up the whole letter witdh and the { is positioned at the far
left of the em quad. Usually selecting a font size smaller or larger would
solve such problems for me.


Regards, Torsten
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