FreeTypeFaces text drawing with hinting!

[andrewj]

@jules

Image::SharedImage has actually been renamed, and had a few changes to its methods, but it shouldn’t be too hard to update to the new version.

Thanks Jules. What has it been renamed to?

[jules]

Oh, I can’t remember offhand… Have a look inside the Image class!

[andrewj]

OK, I’ll do a bit of digging.

[andrewj]

As it turns out Vincent had some defined-out code as an alternate to using SharedImage. So with a few tweaks it all compiles now.

Now I seem to have a problem getting it to load fonts from binary resources into FreeType - so I’ll keep plodding on…

I’ll document things here if I get it all working.

[andrewj]

Bah, can’t figure out why the FreeType TrueType driver can’t load the TTF memory streams I’m using - so I’m going to have a rest from this again (possibly permanently).

In case anyone is interested in getting this to work with the modules branch, here are the changes I made to FreeType.cpp get it to at least compile:

[list][]Commented out FreeTypeImage class (lines 719-758)[/]
[]At line 788 I changed the #if from 0 to 1[/]
[]At line 793 I changed argument 6 from true to Image::BitmapData::readWrite[/][/list]

-Andrew

[TheVinn]

At some point I will get this all fixed up and turned into a module

[andrewj]

@TheVinn

At some point I will get this all fixed up and turned into a module

Nice!

Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module? I sunk way too much time into sorting that out and still had a fail :roll:

[TheVinn]

Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module?

Since FreeType comes with certain operating systems and it would conflict, the chances are slim.

[andrewj]

Ah, OK. Thanks for answering!

[andrewj]

I’ve finally got this working - but it would be much nicer to have an LCD optimised EdgeTable renderer in Juce and skip FreeType altogether.

Jules - can you explain why this isn’t a priority - surely it’s worth the couple of days / 200 lines of code you reckon it needs? I think you’ve written before that you think it looks OK if you choose your fonts appropriately - but that limits GUI design and many Juce GUIs are looking a bit dated as a result I think. (Hope this doesn’t sound too narky ).

[jules]

Jules - can you explain why this isn’t a priority - surely it’s worth the couple of days / 200 lines of code you reckon it needs? I think you’ve written before that you think it looks OK if you choose your fonts appropriately - but that limits GUI design and many Juce GUIs are looking a bit dated as a result I think. (Hope this doesn’t sound too narky ).

Well, it’d certainly take me at least a day, and I’m concentrating on openGL/OS-native rendering these days, as I think that’s where the future lies…

[andrewj]

@jules

[quote]Jules - can you explain why this isn’t a priority - surely it’s worth the couple of days / 200 lines of code you reckon it needs? I think you’ve written before that you think it looks OK if you choose your fonts appropriately - but that limits GUI design and many Juce GUIs are looking a bit dated as a result I think. (Hope this doesn’t sound too narky ).

Well, it’d certainly take me at least a day, and I’m concentrating on openGL/OS-native rendering these days, as I think that’s where the future lies…[/quote]

Thanks for the quick reply Jules. I’ve had a look at the software rendering code, and I know it’d take me a damn sight longer than a day - which probably wouldn’t surprise you

I know you’ve been spending a lot of effort on the openGL/OS-native stuff lately - and I’m looking forward to that indeed. Especially if it makes the fonts look yummy!

[TheVinn]

@Andrew J

Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module? I sunk way too much time into sorting that out and still had a fail :roll:

Hmmm…I take back what I said. Having an “amalgamated” version of FreeType would definitely be a REALLY good choice!!!

[andrewj]

@TheVinn

[quote=“Andrew J”]Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module? I sunk way too much time into sorting that out and still had a fail :roll:

Hmmm…I take back what I said. Having an “amalgamated” version of FreeType would definitely be a REALLY good choice!!![/quote]
Ha ha - it is a bit of a pest isn’t it!

[TheVinn]

@Andrew J

Ha ha - it is a bit of a pest isn’t it!

I wrote to the maintainer to see what we can do. Rolling FreeType into a single .h / .cpp combo would be awesome.

[TheVinn]

@TheVinn

[quote]Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module?

Since FreeType comes with certain operating systems and it would conflict, the chances are slim.[/quote]

I’m working with the FreeType developers to produce an amalgamation. If you want to subscribe to the FreeType mailing list you can weigh in or watch the progress.

[TheVinn]

@Andrew J

Would you aim to include the FreeType library itself as part of the module?

YES! Check this out:

FreeType Amalgamation + Amalgamator ALPHA!

@Andrew J

I sunk way too much time into sorting that out and still had a fail :roll:

I’d like to know if the amalgamated version of FreeType works for you.

[andrewj]

Ask and ye shall receive eh?

I’ll take a look at this as soon as I can (might be a couple of days though as I’m snowed under).

Thanks a lot!

[TheVinn]

VFLib contains the vf_freetype module which provides amalgamated FreeType sources, or using the facilities in the operating system. And in vf_gui I put FreeTypeFaces, the class which provides hinted font support in Juce:

vinniefalco/VFLib

The FreeTypeFaces object has been updated with all the necessary changes to work with the modules branch. It also has a bunch of documentation on usage.

[otristan]

I was checking this and it looks like the hinted version do not produce the right results.
Fonts are way smaller that the non hinted version.

Does this only works when TYPEFACE_BITMAP_RENDERING is enabled ?

Thanks