Re: A little bit of research on font smoothing in X

[Juliusz Chroboczek <jec dcs ed ac uk>]

[note that I am not on the gnome-gui list -- so please Cc: me with any
relevant messages]

In article <015b01bdbd41$64a300d0$e1ccb8ce@alephdox>,
  "Dan Kaminsky" <effugas@best.com> writes:

DK> I've been poking around, trying to figure out *why* font smoothing
DK> and X don't seem to get along...

[...]

DK> I *may* have a solution...

DK> The X-Server would have to be smart enough to know to downsample a
DK> 24 point font when 12 point metrics have been provided, and then
DK> to implement the minimal level of alpha levels.  I can say
DK> this--Xfree86 gets this, EVERYONE will follow.

Actually, implementing a font server extension to provide pixmaps
is fairly easy.  The problem is in designing a server extension that
is sufficiently simple for applications to use.

Ideally, the application would not need to inform the X server about
the colors to use for the anti-aliasing.  Unfortunately, this creates
problems in PseudoColor visuals -- are you willing to have the server
allocate colormap cells behind the scenes?

Nonetheless, I do know that there are people experimenting with such
approaches within the XFree86 crowd.  If you're interested in helping,
I'll get you in touch with them (just drop me a note).

Sincerely,

                                        J.