[haiku-development] Re: Default Font Choice In Haiku should likely be changed
- From: Sean Collins <smc.collins@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:08:43 -0400
Stephan Aßmus wrote:
Hi,
That's OK, I understand it's your observation. I just don't get how it
would be even possible that the monitor aspect ratio has anything to
do with whether a font looks good or not. If you display just a few
glyphs full screen, I could imagine that there might be some
asthetical correspondence between the aspect ratio of the glyphs and
the image, but for regular on-screen text, I really don't get it.
You know, I keep asking why the fonts look better or worse, and I
think its a screen ratio thing. Plus at higher resolutions the
readability goes down allot. Looks ok at a 4:3 with a total horizontal
of say 12xx but not so good at 16:9 at 1920h.
Do you have a 1080I 23 inch or so monitor ? might be enlightening to try
viewing Haiku on such a monitor if you have not. Also the system defualt
size is very small at such a resolution. thats a whole other discussion.
but maybe its not. One of the things that Might be worth doing, is
creating a base of default font sizes and choice for various monitor
screen sizes and resolutions. I have no idea what that might entail on
the development side, but to me it would be worthwhile. Windows and
Linux are both also horrible with this and in windows adjusting font
sizes is a task. Never played with it much on Linux. I frequently right
off the bat after a install have to bump font sizes at least 2+ to make
the thing readable without squinting on a 1080i monitor. I have perfect
20/20 eyesight to. So its not my eyeballs, its just hard to read at the
default size at a resolution that high.
You have started this discussion, and nobody tried to stop it. Some
people just want some more substantial reasons for changing the
default font. Obviously nobody with commit rights felt a great need to
change to another font up until now, so why would it be invalid to ask
for good reasons before just doing so?
Well, hurray for free speech !
My primary list for changing the font sizing would be as follows
1. readability at high screen resolutions. 1080i monitor in 16:9 are
very hard to read at defualt sizes. Less problematic at 4:3. There could
be a rendering issue however with 16:9 maybe a underlying bug ??? I
don't know. I just know it looks back and is difficult to read.
2. the current fonts don't really say elegance and statliness to me
personally. They look cheap and dated. I realize this is a illusuary
argument. But to be honest. They just don't look so good in 2011. I have
a higher expectation and I think many people investigating Haiku should go
WOW that looks GREAT as asthetics are just as important as performance
is.
3. really drawing a blank here.
No, that's why I am asking you! :-) And I asked first!
Well, I answered above, but I think asking the community what they
think could be worthwhile. Maybe with all the other activity and
concerns about driver etc, its just something that hasn't been thought
of. User experience is important, particularly that first time use of
the system. Where the Mantra sane defaults has been repeated for years
as part of this community.
That is besides the point, IMHO. If Dejavu were so bad, somebody would
have changed it by now. But that doesn't mean we can't change it
anyway when something better is proposed. But you are the one who
feels strongly about it, so why don't you propose some fonts to check
out? (Besides Droid, for reasons already given - which doesn't mean we
would never switch to Droid.)
Well, Dejavu is very similar to the original Be font looks from my
observation, my guess would be that this might have been part of the
reason it was selected, unless my memory is failing and the BeOS fonts
looked substantially different ?
http://blueos.free.fr/font.png
There isn't really the need for something formal like that already. If
you propose some cool alternative font that most everybody thinks is
better looking than Dejavu, it might just be changed without fuss.
Only if there cannot be any consensus reached, we would do something
like a vote.
Best regards,
-Stephan
I think it would be best to pick a few fonts, then run a poll in the
community to get user/developer feedback. Would this be agreeable to see
if the issue needs addressing ?
Pulkomandy says :
Maybe these monitors just have different RGB / BGR subpixels ? Or even just
a different DPI ? Did you try adjusting the font rendering settings in the
font preferences panel ?
I did, and I did not see anything making adjustments that met the
expectations I had.
Thanks for you time everyone, if no one is disagreeable, I would like
to start a community poll and see what the results maybe. If anyone is
familiar with setting up these polling services, I could use a hand.
Sean
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