Alas, the answer is that no, there isn't any voodoo you can do to get DWrite to respect the width hints.

Shortly after fractional width rendering (subpixel positioning) was introduced, I suggested to some people at MS that it would be good if there were a flag in the font that one could set to indicate to DWrite that one wanted full pixel spacing to be used. [The context for this is that we were designing some fonts for specific ppem sizes on full pixel grids, but when they were preceded on the line by other fonts they were getting knocked off the grid in DWrite environments.] The folks I spoke to agreed that such a flag would have been a useful thing, but thought it was too late to introduce it.

I'm curious, why did you delete your first post?

hhp

Hi John,

Thanks for looking into that for me. It's a shame to hear that, but I can't say I'm suprised.

It's too bad that they seemed to go to such trouble to preserve backward compatibility with the various ClearType rendering options, but didn't provide a way for forward compatibility. I'd have thought that some combination of the GASP table and INSTCTRL (beyond just the 4 3 flag and selector) would be ideal.

I realize that the world is generally moving away from hinting, but from my experience as an enthusiastic amateur in font design, it still seems like carefully chosen TrueType instructions have every bit as much to say as the raw splines about the visual character of a font at lower resolutions. Likewise, I feel feel strongly that the choice between whole pixel grids, subpixel grids, and lack of grids ought to be a design decision that belongs in the fonts themselves (at least for fonts new enough to be aware of such things).

Oh well. Thanks again.

I feel strongly that the choice between whole pixel grids, subpixel grids, and lack of grids ought to be a design decision that belongs in the fonts themselves

I entirely agree.

Hrant, because it was administrative rather than informational.

I think the deleted post did provide a certain kind of information: that you needed to consult somebody for the answer. I can't think of a good reason to have deleted it. Anyway, no huge deal.

hhp

"..., it still seems like carefully chosen TrueType instructions have every bit as much to say as the raw splines about the visual character of a font at lower resolutions"

This is a great observation, but it has been so long since the instructions were reliable. The proof is now out that only the rich can make viable solutions for the web, to a great extent, because of this windows rendering. And the bottleneck it has created is not just Google fonts opportunity.

"Likewise, I feel feel strongly that the choice between whole pixel grids, subpixel grids, and lack of grids ought to be a design decision that belongs in the fonts themselves (at least for fonts new enough to be aware of such things)."

This goes back to the gasp table's invention which is not so new either. What is new here is that so many more people understand the issue, and that the fonts MS was afraid of rendering because of evil hints, must be dead and gone by now?

My favorite comment, is that you'd a thought MS would make Some Way forward for excellence in hinting. Can we have x back on windows now? Is the x box done hogging it?;)

hi Bitblt
as John mentioned this is the situation right now. I am Mike Duggan by the way. Is it possible for you to introduce yourself?

cheers
mike

David: ...and that the fonts MS was afraid of rendering because of evil hints, must be dead and gone by now?

The fonts are not dead and gone, but the rendering environments at which their heavy delta hinting was targeted have died and gone, so the obvious solution would be to rehint those fonts for modern rendering environments.

Hi Mike,

Sure. I'm coming at things from the technical side. I'm a professional software developer with an expertise in graphics algorithms.

I spend a lot of time reading code on screen and several years ago I found myself not completely happy with any of the available typefaces. So I set out to make one I'd like to use. Working on it soon became a hobby and I got a bit crazy with it (to the point of teaching myself to write TT hinting instructions). What can I say? I'm very demanding of my pixels, both at work and at home.

Cheers!

Damien? :-)

looking forward to seeing the font when its released. Please let us know when that happens.

JoHn:"The fonts are not dead and gone, "

I think they are. The instructions you are talking about, only make CT fonts blue, while the instructions I was talking about, were said to make whole computer screens blue.

" so the obvious solution would be to rehint those fonts for modern rendering environments."

I think that's all done. As I should have said, the fonts that concerned MS in the transition from aliased to CT, are dead and rehinted.

Free Damien.;)

Hello, again. This perhaps deserves its own post under Release, but just to follow up on this thread I made the font in question, Luculent, available as of yesterday.