KDE Software Compilation 4.3.4 Released

[misiu_mp]

I know I'm with the minority about this, but I find it incredible that you don't notice the colour bleeding in those fonts. They look wrong at any distance. From far away I can tell that there's something wrong with them and I unconsciously try to constantly re-focus my eyes on the screen. From a closer distance, on the other hand, you notice all the not-so-sublte tricks the antialiasing and subpixel rendering do. It may have something to do with different sensitivities to colour and contrast among different individuals.

I hate sub-pixel hinting too. The color bleed is killing me.

[V!NCENT]

Another one sees teh light, nice!

All Gnome Vs. KDE friendly flaming aside, Gnome has of course changed less than KDE. That means that it's awfully mature and stable. While KDE gets about 10.000 bug fixes on avarage with each release, it's only natural that Gnome works more like it actually suppose to work

[BlackStar]

Hi Yall,

while being back in the land of The Gnome, I thought I would give Compiz a try, just to see how XGLsnow, would look with XSNOW.

*WOW*

Another one sees teh light, nice!

I really like it. Also, my vision has not been robbed of me, nor have I been struck by lightening or some such dire fate.... ;-)

But don't tempt the Fates...

[GreekGeek]

Default KDE 4.xxx has one thing really wrong! - No Xsnow.

Hi Yall,

while being back in the land of The Gnome, I thought I would give Compiz a try, just to see how XGLsnow, would look with XSNOW.

*WOW*

I really like it. Also, my vision has not been robbed of me, nor have I been struck by lightening or some such dire fate.... ;-)

Watching video is ok too, with the FGLRX driver. The bad issues I had while in KDE 4.xxxx, seem to have gone. I am very surprised by that, cause most of this discussion, is that the video tearing, was wm independent.

I've been a KDE guys, since 1998. Hmmm....

In the mean time, xmouse is playing nicely on my desktop.

*BFN*

GreekGeek :-)

[V!NCENT]

[...] yea, i read them. And it wasn't by being a religious KDE freak. Perhaps KDE causes its users to go blind, and as a result features such as font scaling are added.

Nah... My vision started decreasing when I was still using Gnome. It must have happened in order to prevent me from scratching out my own eyeballs. Ever since I started using KDE it stopped.

[L33F3R]

Oh boy... am I glad that my eyes aren't that good anymore and I refuse to wear glasses xD

Well this thread is already senseless so im sure another post by me couldn't make it any worse.

You know when you go to get your eyes tested and you are asked to read various sized letters. You know the ones on the bottom? The ones your not supposed to be able to read?, yea, i read them. And it wasn't by being a religious KDE freak. Perhaps KDE causes its users to go blind, and as a result features such as font scaling are added.

Its a wild comment, but its as good as anything anyone else has posted here.

[V!NCENT]

It is a religious issue. Just make sure that your eyes are removed as far away from the screen as possible, the screen is large enough and has enough DPI. Then install KDE4, enable compositing and see how t3h be5t d3skt0p ev4hr scales everything up percentage wise and see how the entire font issue is completely rendundant...

Oh boy... am I glad that my eyes aren't that good anymore and I refuse to wear glasses xD

[yotambien]

Well, I do wear glasses, but they don't play a part on this. It's a battle between aesthetics and readability. You acknowledged that you have to get used to the subpixel renderering effects, so it's not like they are not there or are only noticeable by folk with glasses. In my case, it's not a decision about grayscale antialiasing and subpixel rendering, both look blurred to me--although the worst case is antialiasing a bad font with the automatic hinter. Simply intolerable. I use plain b/w rendering without any effects, and I always make sure I remove the horrible default fonts (dejavu, isn't it?) and put instead Microsofts'. Sure some characters look jagged, but they are as cryspy and clear as they can get given the physical limitations of current display devices. Until we don't have something like 300 dpi all that's left are hacks that try--and for most people succeed--to cheat your eyes. The only problems I get appear in some pdf files that use fonts that are not designed for the screen and are rendered rather badly. Also, microtypographic features like font expansion may look bad on the screen if no 'cheats' are used, with some characters appearing visibly bolder than others (antialiasing washes off the fonts and it makes them look OKish).

But yeah, this is another useless crusade ala kde vs gnome.

[RealNC]

Nice try, but no. I prefer something like this.

Still looks mediocre to me. Not the desktop itself, rather the applications.

[BlackStar]

I know I'm with the minority about this, but I find it incredible that you don't notice the colour bleeding in those fonts. They look wrong at any distance. From far away I can tell that there's something wrong with them and I unconsciously try to constantly re-focus my eyes on the screen. From a closer distance, on the other hand, you notice all the not-so-sublte tricks the antialiasing and subpixel rendering do. It may have something to do with different sensitivities to colour and contrast among different individuals.

Or it may have to do with the fact that I'm using a full 8bit, color-calibrated, S-PVA panel at 129DPI (if my calculations are correct, that's 1680x1050 at 15.4''). The colored subpixels are all but invisible at 60cm (my normal viewing distance).

Human eyes are very adaptable. If you calibrate your fonts to be consistent (so you don't have a point of reference to contrast your fonts with) you'll gradually stop seeing the colored outlines - provided the monitor allows you (e.g. 17'' 1280x1024 monitors are too low DPI and the outlines will always be visible). Once you become accustomed to the subpixel AA, you'll notice that grayscale AA causes ugly imbalances to diagonal lines (e.g. the letter 'x'). Medium/strong hinting causes even more issues, because it "chews" the grapheme outlines and destroys their aesthetics.

I don't know, but for me (and most people I know) it took about two days to become fully accustomed to subpixel AA and I couldn't go back afterwards. I guess people with glasses might disagree, since the glasses may cause chromatic aberration, but I don't know anyone who has actually switched back from subpixel to grayscale once becoming accustomed to the former.

I understand this is a religious isuse, but there must be a good reason why both Windows and Mac OS X default to subpixel AA. Myself, I'd love to see 300+DPI displays so we can do away with hinting and color bleeding completely!

PS: the first image is (lightly) jpeg compressed, which causes artifacts around the letters. Check the second picture (png) instead.