freetype 2 rendering issues

[DarkShadow44]

Hello,
I have a problem with freetype 2, and since it only happens with wine I figured I'd ask here.
It started with the upgrade from "lib32-freetype2-2.6.5" to "lib32-freetype2-2.7", since then text is very distorted at parts. It affects multiple programs.
I tested it with notepad++, the font in question is tahoma. To test it, create a new wineprefix, run "winetricks tahoma" and get notepad++ 7.2.

Screenshots for comparison: http://imgur.com/a/OIIO6
Especially important is the menu strip with new freetype and tahoma installed, it looks really bad.

Is this a freetype 2 issue or something with wine? Any tips how to go about this issue?

[dimesio]

Known bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41639.

[DarkShadow44]

Ah thanks, only searched for freetype2 and didn't find that.

[Bob Wya]

@DarkShadow44,

Hmmm my Gentoo freetype library is locked to the final freetype infinality patchset release from April 2016... See Github: bohoomil/fontconfig-ultimate ...

The freetype folks appear to have lost the plot with 2.7 series...

In case you are already using subpixel hinting (for example, by using the ‘Infinality patches’ as provided by some GNU/Linux or BSD distributions, or directly from bohoomil.com), be noted that the new mode might provide subtle differences; the code was simplified to make it much faster. If you are used to the old full-pixel hinting, you will see many rendering changes. If you really dislike them, you can disable them at compile time or using the new FREETYPE_PROPERTIES environment variable.

Hmmm...

Bob

[DarkShadow44]

Yeah, they made a few fairly big changes in 2.7.
You should be careful if you're using qt, since infinality is too old and doesn't play nice with new harfbuzz versions.

Also, we got the issue that freetype 2.7 also changes the fontsize, as I have noted in Bug 42171...

[Bob Wya]

Yeah, they made a few fairly big changes in 2.7.
You should be careful if you're using qt, since infinality is too old and doesn't play nice with new harfbuzz versions.

Also, we got the issue that freetype 2.7 also changes the fontsize, as I have noted in Bug 42171...

Hmmm...
Well I know everything will break soon enough - despite the flexibility of Gentoo's package management...
Thankfully if todays upgrade (read downgrade) to harfbuzz 1.4.1 breaks stuff I can roll back to one of the many older versions, of the library, in the Portage tree....

Thanks for the heads up - very useful to know about the issue...

Bob

[Bob Wya]

Nope ... Just for the record font rendering is still fine and dandy with the harfbuzz 1.4.1 library version, when used with the final bohoomil infinality release (23.04.2016)... I've checked both running applications under Wine and general Plasma 5 rendering...

Bob