[Bug 23114] New: Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Summary: Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of
                    the system
           Product: Wine
           Version: 1.2-rc2
          Platform: x86
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: winex11.drv
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]

Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system.
Wine claims to use the system settings for for rendering, however
as can be seen in the screenshot provided in bug #17148 ("Use the 
system desktop setting for subpixel font smoothing."), it
clearly differs from the rest of the system. Wine should render
the fonts the same way as all other applications on the desktop.
I've also provided the relevant system fontconfig settings as an
attachment in bug #17148.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Dmitry Timoshkov  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Component|winex11.drv                 |-unknown
           Severity|normal                      |trivial

--- Comment #1 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2010-06-11 04:34:49 ---
Have you tried to select the same font in Wine's notepad and a native
text editor and compare the result? Attaching (only small relevant parts)
screenshots would be useful.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

[e-mail]  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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          Component|-unknown                    |winex11.drv
           Severity|trivial                     |normal

--- Comment #2 from [e-mail]   2010-06-11 10:04:02 ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> Have you tried to select the same font in Wine's notepad and a native
> text editor and compare the result? Attaching (only small relevant parts)
> screenshots would be useful.

Here is a good example: On the left is my favourite text editor, using the
system settings, to the right is wine's notepad using the wrong settings. The
font is DejaVu Sans, set to 10px. As you can see the text to the left is sharp,
readable and has good contrast, whereas the text in notepad is blurry, hard to
read an has poor contrast (it looks almost gray instead of black).

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #3 from [e-mail]   2010-06-11 10:04:52 ---
Created an attachment (id=28735)
 --> (http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=28735)
Example of poor font rendering in wine

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Dmitry Timoshkov  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Component|winex11.drv                 |-unknown
           Severity|normal                      |trivial

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

A Wine user  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Alexey Loukianov  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #4 from Alexey Loukianov   2010-06-22 02:31:50 ---
I can confirm that there are noticeable differences between hod does the fonts
rendered in wine-1.2-rc4 (actually in all 1.2-rcX except for 1.2-rc1 which
behaved differently) and in the rest of the system. The trouble is that at the
moment there is a pretty big mess in the ways fonts get rendered by
applications on a linux desktop.

First of all, there tends to be a lot of ways how the glyphs may be rendered
nowdays: using only FreeType library, using Xft/libXft, using Cairo, using
Pango, using some self-written native way and some more. 
Older versions of Gtk+ used pango for it's font renderings.
Pango may use cairo, but there are backends that use Xft, FreeType, libx11 and
some other.
Newer GTK+ versions use cairo, same applies to the linux port of XUL-written
apps (like Firefox).
cairo and Xft both use FreeType for rendering and fontconfig library for
determining correct font render properties to use.
To complicate things even more there are some Xft.* Xresources available that
might be used by Xft as a substitute/replacement to the fontconfig.
Qt3 used fontconfig+FreeType, just like cairo and Xft.
Qt4 partly switched away from fontconfig and implemented it's own LCD
antialiasing for fonts.
There were blog posts from Qt4.x developers stating that they are going to get
back to use of fontconfig in Qt4.5.
Some specific apps like OpenOffice use their own implementations of font
rendering libraries.
And another complications is that some users have got FreeType with (patented)
BCI interpretor compiled in while most are not.

Difficulties continue to stack when it comes to how were the font subpixel AA
implemented. There are a bunch of patches out there, some for FreeType and some
for cairo, each providing similar but a little bit different AA results. Most
known is "ubuntu patch" which adds "ClearType-like" functionality to cairo
independent from subpixel AA built-in in FreeType ("lcdfilter" settings in
~/.fonts.conf are handled by this patch).

If you're still not lost in all this complexity then you should know that the
library like GTK+ may use any other arbitary setting for fonts AA at the
programmers will. On the other hand it is well-known bug that cairo library
that should use fontconfig for configuration purposes sometimes silently
ignores the user-specified settings and instead uses the defaults set in the
Gnome Control Center. When it comes to Gnome applications it comes that the
fonts AA behavior would be totally different depending on is the
gnome-settings-daemon started or not. If it is then all Gnome apps will use
font AA settings from the gconf registry (those set from the Gnome Control
Center). If it is not - then the fontconfig defaults tend to be used but
intersected with the Xft.* resources values.

Taking all this to the bottom line: actually now there's no such thing on linux
desktop as a "default settings for the system font rendering". That's why I
don't think that the fact that Wine renders subpixel AA somewhat different
should be considered a bug.

Still, as now wine seems to be declaring that it will "Use the system desktop
setting for subpixel font smoothing" (bug #17148 marked as CLOSED FIXED) it
would be great to know two things:
1. What is the place this "system desktop setting" are taken from?
2. Are there any ways to set Wine to use other fonts AA settings than one
detected to be set for the "system desktop"?

If the answer for the question 2 is "no ways" then it is definitely a
regression in Wine functionality as before it was possible to have one settings
for Wine apps and another for other system.

P.S. Side question is the current purpose of the
"FontSmoothing"/"FontSmoothingType" registry keys as it seems to me that the
fix to the bug #17148 made them obsolete.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #5 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2010-06-22 02:54:02 ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> Still, as now wine seems to be declaring that it will "Use the system desktop
> setting for subpixel font smoothing" (bug #17148 marked as CLOSED FIXED) it
> would be great to know two things:
> - What is the place this "system desktop setting" are taken from?

It's Fontconfig.
> - Are there any ways to set Wine to use other fonts AA settings than one
>
> detected to be set for the "system desktop"?

That's the strange question, if you know what the bug 17148 is about.
> If the answer for the question 2 is "no ways" then it is definitely a
> regression in Wine functionality as before it was possible to have one settings
> for Wine apps and another for other system.

It's not a regression, it's an improvement, otherwise the bug 17148 would not
be fixed.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #6 from Alexey Loukianov   2010-06-22 03:50:02 ---
(In reply to comment #5)
> > - What is the place this "system desktop setting" are taken from?
>
> It's Fontconfig.

Ok. And how does it relate with "Xft.*" Xresources? Who does take the
precedence (and why)?
> > - Are there any ways to set Wine to use other fonts AA settings than one
> >
> > detected to be set for the "system desktop"?
>
> That's the strange question, if you know what the bug 17148 is about.

As a developer a would thought that that bug was about the _default_ wine
behavior. Making new behavior mandatory is a major change that I consider to be
regression. As always my considerations might (and actually does) differ with
ones the real wine developers have.
> It's not a regression, it's an improvement, otherwise the bug 17148 would not
> be fixed.

It's offtop here but that bug is actually not fixed. It is perfectly possible
to set antialias to "false" in ~/.fonts.conf (resulting in Qt3 and GTK apps to
stop using font smoothing) and still have got it enabled in wine-1.2-rc4 due to
Xft.antialias set to "true". Easily reproducible on my workstation, I may
provide the configuration details and proving screenshots if needed.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #7 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2010-06-22 04:08:02 ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > > - What is the place this "system desktop setting" are taken from?
> >
> > It's Fontconfig.
>
> Ok. And how does it relate with "Xft.*" Xresources? Who does take the
> precedence (and why)?

See the fontconfig documentation/source.
> > > - Are there any ways to set Wine to use other fonts AA settings than one
> > >
> > > detected to be set for the "system desktop"?
> >
> > That's the strange question, if you know what the bug 17148 is about.
>
> As a developer a would thought that that bug was about the _default_ wine
> behavior. Making new behavior mandatory is a major change that I consider to be
> regression. As always my considerations might (and actually does) differ with
> ones the real wine developers have.

Since the Wine behaviour now is configurable by the native means and should
potentially match what other applications do I don't see a problem here.
> > It's not a regression, it's an improvement, otherwise the bug 17148 would not
> > be fixed.
>
> It's offtop here but that bug is actually not fixed. It is perfectly possible
> to set antialias to "false" in ~/.fonts.conf (resulting in Qt3 and GTK apps to
> stop using font smoothing) and still have got it enabled in wine-1.2-rc4 due to
> Xft.antialias set to "true". Easily reproducible on my workstation, I may
> provide the configuration details and proving screenshots if needed.

If Wine behaviour doesn't match what other Linux applications do that's
another problem, and it's the subject of this bug report.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #8 from Alexandre Julliard   2010-06-22 04:12:25 ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> It's offtop here but that bug is actually not fixed. It is perfectly possible
> to set antialias to "false" in ~/.fonts.conf (resulting in Qt3 and GTK apps to
> stop using font smoothing) and still have got it enabled in wine-1.2-rc4 due to
> Xft.antialias set to "true". Easily reproducible on my workstation, I may
> provide the configuration details and proving screenshots if needed.

The Wine strategy is an approximation, in particular because we also have to
respect what the app itself requests. It's quite possible that behavior with
contradictory configurations doesn't quite match what other apps do; I don't
think that's a particularly interesting case. Besides, as you mentioned,
there's no clear standard to follow anyway.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #9 from Alexey Loukianov   2010-06-22 04:38:54 ---
(In reply to comment #7)
> See the fontconfig documentation/source.

Good catch, thanks. Will take a look into fc source, hope the relations with
the Xft resources would become more clear for me then.
> If Wine behaviour doesn't match what other Linux applications do that's
> another problem, and it's the subject of this bug report.

As I know a bunch of cases when with some set of the fc/Xresources settings the
font AA behavior would be different fot GTK+, XUL and Qt3 apps I still don't
think that it should be considered the bug. It is perfectly enough for wine to
have well-determined and documented behavior of how to configure fonts AA. You
have posted that for now the "system defaults" are configured by fontconfig so
the only non-documented question left is what is the current purpose of
"FontSmoothing"/"FontSmoothingType" registry values. Wine's approach that
"fonts anti-aliasing system desktop defaults" are configured with fontconfig is
good enough for me to be content with it.

The fact that there are some other apps violating this "configuration rule" is
not a wine's fault thus is not a wine bug.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Sergiy Zuban  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |NEW
     Ever Confirmed|0                           |1

--- Comment #10 from Sergiy Zuban   2010-06-22 07:12:33 ---
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Sergiy Zuban  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #11 from [e-mail]   2010-06-29 06:23:23 ---
still not fixed in 1.2_rc5

Also, I don't have any Xft settings that I can see, aside from xfce's Xft.xrdb:

dafox@shogoki ~ $ locate -i xft | grep -i "conf|cfg"
/home/dafox/.config/xfce4/Xft.xrdb
/usr/share/man/man1/xft-config.1.bz2
/usr/lib/pkgconfig/xft.pc
/usr/lib/pkgconfig/pangoxft.pc
/usr/bin/xft-config

.config/xfce4/Xft.xrdb seems to only be used by GTK apps. For example when I
set antialias to false and hinting to none (using xfce4-appearance-settings,
which edits ~/.config/xfce4/Xft.xrdb), both firefox (Mozilla app) and gitk
(tcl/tk app) still use the global font-config settings. GTK applications (i.e.
the rest of the desktop) however do pickup on those Xft settings. Wine however
still does whatever it wants to do, ignoring both the font-config settings
*and* Xft settings.

If wine does not want to read GTK or Xfce's Xft settings (which I find
perfectly reasonable, since it's not a GTK application), it should use the
settings specified by font-config (e.g. /etc/fonts/fonts.conf and
/etc/fonts/local.conf).

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #12 from Alexey Loukianov   2010-06-29 16:18:19 ---
(In reply to comment #11)
> still not fixed in 1.2_rc5
>
> Also, I don't have any Xft settings that I can see, 
> aside from xfce's Xft.xrdb:
> .... cut a lot here ....

Don't you thing that this bug reported by you is about a slightly different
thing? It seems to me that it is primarily about the fact that Wine renders
fonts differently than the other apps on the system even when they use the same
configuration (i.e. Wine's subpixel rendering and hinting are not looking the
same as KDE/GTK+/GTK2 ones. Part of the problem with fontconfig vs. Xft
settings selection had been fixed with pretty simple and straightforward patch
closing bug 23006. You may wish to try the current git to verify that the
things got much better now.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

--- Comment #13 from [e-mail] 2013-06-27 12:43:16 CDT ---
This ticket has not been updated for over 900 days.

Is this still an issue in wine version 1.6-rc3 or higher or is this to be
closed as abandoned ?

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |ABANDONED

--- Comment #14 from Austin English  ---
(In reply to butraxz from comment #13)
> This ticket has not been updated for over 900 days.
>
> Is this still an issue in wine version 1.6-rc3 or higher or is this to be
> closed as abandoned ?

Abandoned.

[Bug 23114] Wine renders the fonts differently from the rest of the system

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23114

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |CLOSED

--- Comment #15 from Austin English  ---
Closing.