Re: [ft] Bytecode hinter producing bad results, seems to be a regression

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I'm ashamed to admit it but you are talking about things that are
> going WAY over my head. I tried to use those programs fontforge and
> ttx but I failed to get them to run.  Something about needing
> Cygwin,

Indeed, making fontforge run under Windows is difficult.

> which also generated errors when I tried to install that, and I
> don't understand TTX.

You mean you don't understand the output of ttx?  It definitely runs
under Windows since it is a pure Python script.

> So my code is supposed to dig into the font file and figure out if
> hinting is supported?

No, not at all.  The function FT_Get_Gasp tells you, for a given
ppem, whether you should render a glyph as monochrome (i.e.,
black-white) or with anti-aliasing.

> I just want to open the font and get hinted outlines without
> worrying.

TrueType hinting doesn't work like this.  For monochrome rendering,
the hinting engine also specifies how to rasterize the glyphs
(selecting a drop-out mode, for example).

> What is a monochrome rendering and how do I test it under Windows?

I have no idea since I don't use Windows.  You must programmatically
switch off ClearType and force B/W rendering for various ppems.[1]

> I'm not using FreeType to render...just to extract outlines.

This is tricky...

> And by the way, the autohinting module works pretty damn good!

Then use it!


    Werner


[1] If anyone is willing and capable to handle this (by returning
    images similar to FreeType's `ftview'), I'm sending the
    problematic Helvetica font privately for testing.