Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans and terrible with ClearType

Bug #820493 reported by DJ Belieny
52
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu Font Family
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When using the Ubuntu Beta Mono font in Netbeans the font is somewhat jagged and the fonts do not show as smooth as Monospaced or Monaco, see attached screenshot for comparison. Please note that if the fonts are on size 14 or 16 the issue is even more accentuated.

Revision history for this message
DJ Belieny (djbelieny) wrote :
Paul Sladen (sladen)
summary: - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans
+ Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans
tags: added: uff-hinting uff-mono
Revision history for this message
Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote : Re: Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans

Hello DJ, the picture is using black-and-white rendering which requires manual hinting information in the font to produce.

The Ubuntu Mono in the beta test PPA hasn't been hinted yet. The reason for this is that the engineering to add hinting is very time-consuming and so it's best to be sure that the shapes and style of the font itself is correct before moving on to the hinting stage.

Hinting of the four Ubuntu Mono fonts is currently underway and I've received a snapshot of the Regular already. When the hinted versions are available the jaggies should go away (see the attached screenshot of your "The quick brown" re-rendered with hinting.

BTW, looking at that, it looks like a couple of the hinted letters could do with more work (the 'w' is not symmetric). Would you be interested in helping to /really/ test the hinted forms?

Revision history for this message
DJ Belieny (djbelieny) wrote : Re: [Bug 820493] Re: Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans

Sure;
just let me know what to do and I'll invest some time on it.
I will really benefit from a GOOD monospaced coding font :)
Thanks
DJ

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Paul Sladen <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hello DJ, the picture is using black-and-white rendering which requires
> manual hinting information in the font to produce.
>
> The Ubuntu Mono in the beta test PPA hasn't been hinted yet. The reason
> for this is that the engineering to add hinting is very time-consuming
> and so it's best to be sure that the shapes and style of the font itself
> is correct before moving on to the hinting stage.
>
> Hinting of the four Ubuntu Mono fonts is currently underway and I've
> received a snapshot of the Regular already. When the hinted versions
> are available the jaggies should go away (see the attached screenshot of
> your "The quick brown" re-rendered with hinting.
>
> BTW, looking at that, it looks like a couple of the hinted letters could
> do with more work (the 'w' is not symmetric). Would you be interested
> in helping to /really/ test the hinted forms?
>
> ** Attachment added: "ubuntu-mono-hinting-48pt.png"
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-family/+bug/820493/+attachment/2252318/+files/ubuntu-mono-hinting-48pt.png
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/820493
>
> Title:
> Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-family/+bug/820493/+subscriptions
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--

Paul Sladen (sladen)
summary: Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in Netbeans
+ and terrible with ClearType
Revision history for this message
Dave Anderson (davious) wrote :

Ubuntu Beta Mono looks crinkly in monochrome and when looking at the font on a remote windows OS in notepad (that doesn't alias). Is this due to the no hinting mentioned above?

Revision history for this message
Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote :

Dave: You are correct. An outline font benefits from being hinted, to render usefully and reliably in a low-resolution black-and-white environment.

The font looks good, either:

  * in black-and-white with lots of pixels (600 DPI laser printer), or
  * with few pixels, but lots of grayscale levels (a computer monitor running at its full abilities.

It's unlikely to look good with low spatial granularity and low luminance granularity.

I've tried to show in the attached PDF the level of distortion that might be necessary in order to render a complex outline font in a low-resolution bi-level environment.

  * On the left is the outline font in its full glory (an 'm' in this case)
  * In the middle is an approximated demonstration of what might happen if one were simply to colour the nearest pixels.
  * On the right, is an approximated demonstration, is a possibly result with hinting information, better guiding the distortion/grid-alignment.

Paul Sladen (sladen)
Changed in ubuntu-font-family:
milestone: none → 0.80
Revision history for this message
Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote :

Jason Campbell and Vincent Connare's initial hinting are commited in v0.80~rc, but are otherwise still in progress.

Changed in ubuntu-font-family:
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
DJ Belieny (djbelieny) wrote :

Guys. It's looking good in Netbeans, check out the screenshot. Thank you.

Revision history for this message
Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote :

DJ: looking at that, I would say that the 'w' needs some love, and the "'" single quote is a bit under-defined. What do you think?

Revision history for this message
Sean Palmer (sp332) wrote :

Here's a Cleartype sample in size 12, in white-on-black. Looks pretty good, given that colors generally interact badly with sub-pixel hinting.

Revision history for this message
Sean Palmer (sp332) wrote :

Sorry, wrong image. This is the size 12 in Cleartype on black.

Revision history for this message
Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote :

2011-09-22 (Paul Sladen) Ubuntu Font Family version 0.80

  [Vincent Connare/Dalton Maag]
  * Wish for addition of a monospaced member to the family (LP: #640382)
  * Mono: No hinting yet - Ubuntu Beta Mono font looks jagged in
    Netbeans and terrible with ClearType (LP: #820493)
  * Emacs: choosing normal monospace font in Emacs but gives bold-italic
    (LP: #791076)
  * PUA: ensure that Ubuntu Circle of Friends logo is full size: (LP: #853855)
    + U+E0FF becomes large size in proportionals, remains small width in
      monospaces
    + U+F0FF becomes small size (proportionals only)
    + U+F200 is full ubuntu logomark (proportionals only)

  [Paul Sladen]
  * Monospace: Patch Family Name to be "Ubuntu Mono"
  * Monospace: Patch U+EFFD version debugging glyph to be '0.8'

  [Cody Boisclair]
  * Monospace: Force .null HDMX advance to 500
  * Monospace: Remap ASCII box-drawing characters (LP: #788757)

  [Júlio Reis]
  * Date corrections to 'FONTLOG' (LP: #836595)

Changed in ubuntu-font-family:
milestone: 0.80 → none
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
milestone: none → 0.80
Paul Sladen (sladen)
tags: added: uff-mono-no-hinting
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