Hi, I can see your points... almost. Could you put up a few screenshots with comparisons somewhere? Cheers MH Am Freitag 21 August 2015, 14:01:24 schrieb Richard Brown:

Hi All,

TLDR Version; - I suggest we set the default fonts in openSUSE to the Source Sans/Serif/Code family from Adobe.

Long Version/Explantion; One of the most common complaints we receive from users of openSUSE is 'poor font rendering'

I've thoroughly investigated this over the last months, and while there are a number of things we could do with regards to our font rendering libraries and such, these settings (eg. subpixel hinting) are often a case of 'personal taste' and the display in use (LCD, TFT, CRT, and what resolution)

However, while investigating this, I ran into a few interesting observations.

The font rendering in GNOME is perceived by myself and everyone I asked as 'better' than in KDE. Investigating this further, it seems this is almost entirely due to GNOME's use of Cantarell as it's default font, ignoring the system fontconfig

Microsoft TTF fonts are often the cause for many peoples perceptions of 'bad font rendering'. This is because our current font config often favours the Microsoft fonts if they're installed.

This has sent me down a deep rabbit hole of exploration, looking for font families which in my opinion are suitable to be a new default for openSUSE.

I've wanted to find fonts that are totally practical, not compromising things like readability and size, while looking contemporary and good even when advanced font rendering options are not enabled

NOTE: I'm talking about setting the Default font for applications and desktop environments to this family. So applications like Firefox, Gedit, Terminals, etc will use these fonts when they ask for the systems default Monospace, Serif, or Sans font. When it comes to the use of Fonts in Documents, they'll use whatever Fonts the document asks for, of course. So this change should have no concern with people wanting to use Microsoft fonts inside their Libreoffice documents for example.

This pretty much has led me to a shortlist of 4 font families

Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts DejaVu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_fonts

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Sans_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Serif_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Han_Sans

I would not recommend Liberation as a default - as it's metrically identical to the Microsoft fonts they share many of the same 'ugliness' issues, and are generally old, tired, and work best on old screens instead of modern LCD's

DejaVu's fonts were a strong contender, however I personally do not like the look of them as much compared to the Source Family of fonts. Also, they do not have a consistent 'feel' across their various Sans/Monospace/Serif types, which leads to openSUSE looking rather disjointed and messy if you set it up to use DejaVu fonts by default

Droid fonts would be my second choice, and shares many of the good things I'm about to say about the Source family, however it's Mono font is not nearly as pretty as Source Code Pro, so on those grounds alone, I don't want to see it as the default

So, why the Source Family? 1. It's designed by Adobe, and they know a thing or two about fonts 2. The fonts are all open source (SIL Open Font License) 3. Wide language support 4. All designed to be used in *User Interfaces* which, is what we're talking about using it for here 5. Much of the Source family is already used by openSUSE in our official branding ( https://opensuse.github.io/branding-guidelines/ ) and having the user interface reflect that will be a subtle way to subliminally imprint a consistent image of openSUSE on our users 6. The fonts all look great in every situation I've tested them in. They do not require any fancy settings like Subpixel hinting to look excellent 7. Modern, Contemporary looking. 8. Source Code Pro, the monospaced font, is very popular with everyone I know who's asked it 9. I've been testing it as my personal default for over 6 months and had no problems.

If there are any objections to this proposal, please speak up with your reasons below.

Otherwise Petr has already offered to do the work to make this happen

Regards,

Richard

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On Friday 21 of August 2015 14:01:24 Richard Brown wrote:

6. The fonts all look great in every situation I've tested them in. They do not require any fancy settings like Subpixel hinting to look excellent ... 8. Source Code Pro, the monospaced font, is very popular with everyone I know who's asked it

Just tried "Source Code Pro" in konsole (size 10 on a 24" 1920x1080 LCD) and while I may be the first to feel so, I don't like it at all. On a Tumbleweed machine, "regular" looks terrible: uneven thickness even between e.g. vertical stems ("r" vs. "t") is a no-go. On 13.1, it looks a bit better but e.g. the distances between stems in "m" are not equal which is really disturbing. While "light" doesn't seem to suffer from this, it's too light to use for long periods of time. Size 11 looks better on both systems but that's too big for me; perhaps even 10 would look nice on those modern ~200dpi panels. On the other hand, as long as I can switch back to good old DejaVu easily, I don't care too much for what the default is. Michal Kubeček -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015 14:01:24 +0200 Richard Brown wrote:

Hi All,

TLDR Version; - I suggest we set the default fonts in openSUSE to the Source Sans/Serif/Code family from Adobe.

Long Version/Explantion; One of the most common complaints we receive from users of openSUSE is 'poor font rendering'

I've thoroughly investigated this over the last months, and while there are a number of things we could do with regards to our font rendering libraries and such, these settings (eg. subpixel hinting) are often a case of 'personal taste' and the display in use (LCD, TFT, CRT, and what resolution)

However, while investigating this, I ran into a few interesting observations.

The font rendering in GNOME is perceived by myself and everyone I asked as 'better' than in KDE. Investigating this further, it seems this is almost entirely due to GNOME's use of Cantarell as it's default font, ignoring the system fontconfig

Microsoft TTF fonts are often the cause for many peoples perceptions of 'bad font rendering'. This is because our current font config often favours the Microsoft fonts if they're installed.

This has sent me down a deep rabbit hole of exploration, looking for font families which in my opinion are suitable to be a new default for openSUSE.

I've wanted to find fonts that are totally practical, not compromising things like readability and size, while looking contemporary and good even when advanced font rendering options are not enabled

NOTE: I'm talking about setting the Default font for applications and desktop environments to this family. So applications like Firefox, Gedit, Terminals, etc will use these fonts when they ask for the systems default Monospace, Serif, or Sans font. When it comes to the use of Fonts in Documents, they'll use whatever Fonts the document asks for, of course. So this change should have no concern with people wanting to use Microsoft fonts inside their Libreoffice documents for example.

This pretty much has led me to a shortlist of 4 font families

Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts DejaVu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_fonts

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Sans_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Serif_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Han_Sans

I would not recommend Liberation as a default - as it's metrically identical to the Microsoft fonts they share many of the same 'ugliness' issues, and are generally old, tired, and work best on old screens instead of modern LCD's

DejaVu's fonts were a strong contender, however I personally do not like the look of them as much compared to the Source Family of fonts. Also, they do not have a consistent 'feel' across their various Sans/Monospace/Serif types, which leads to openSUSE looking rather disjointed and messy if you set it up to use DejaVu fonts by default

Droid fonts would be my second choice, and shares many of the good things I'm about to say about the Source family, however it's Mono font is not nearly as pretty as Source Code Pro, so on those grounds alone, I don't want to see it as the default

So, why the Source Family? 1. It's designed by Adobe, and they know a thing or two about fonts 2. The fonts are all open source (SIL Open Font License) 3. Wide language support 4. All designed to be used in *User Interfaces* which, is what we're talking about using it for here 5. Much of the Source family is already used by openSUSE in our official branding ( https://opensuse.github.io/branding-guidelines/ ) and having the user interface reflect that will be a subtle way to subliminally imprint a consistent image of openSUSE on our users 6. The fonts all look great in every situation I've tested them in. They do not require any fancy settings like Subpixel hinting to look excellent 7. Modern, Contemporary looking. 8. Source Code Pro, the monospaced font, is very popular with everyone I know who's asked it 9. I've been testing it as my personal default for over 6 months and had no problems.

If there are any objections to this proposal, please speak up with your reasons below.

Otherwise Petr has already offered to do the work to make this happen

Regards,

Richard

I would agree to the Droid fonts as suitable. That is the font family I choose for my own use and install on other beginning Linus user systems that I build. Looking at the available font list (for KDE), that font (Source Code) is not listed. Is it available for download from SuSE? If so, would you be able to supply the appropriate information? Thanks, Tom -- When you get all full of yourself try giving orders to a cat. - Anonymous ^^ --... ...-- / -.- --. --... -.-. ..-. -.-. ^^^^ Tom Taylor KG7CFC openSUSE 13.1 (64-bit), Kernel 3.11.6-4-default, KDE 4.11.2, AMD A8-7600, GeForce GTX 740 T/PCIe/ 16GB RAM -- 3x1.5TB sata2 -- 128GB-SSD FF 37.0, claws-mail 3.10.1 registered linux user 263467 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Am Freitag 21 August 2015, 14:01:24 schrieb Richard Brown:

Hi All,

TLDR Version; - I suggest we set the default fonts in openSUSE to the Source Sans/Serif/Code family from Adobe.

My 2 cents: I've tried both Adobe Source and Droid on KDE 4 on OSS13.2 just now. I'm using a self built freetype lib with all hinting, and to make it short, I like Droid Sans better than Source Sans for the UI font. Cheers Mathias -- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Richard Brown skreiv:

I've thoroughly investigated this over the last months, and while there are a number of things we could do with regards to our font rendering libraries and such, these settings (eg. subpixel hinting) are often a case of 'personal taste' and the display in use (LCD, TFT, CRT, and what resolution)

What are the current (default) settings in openSUSE? Since almost no one uses CRT monitors any longer, at least enabling subpixel rendering should be a safe and wise choice. (You write ‘subpixel hinting’, but hinting is a completely different feature than subpixel rendering. I’m not sure what the best default setting for hinting is, and it may depend on the fonts used and on personal preference. But surely subpixel rendering (of type RGB, as this is what’s used by ~100% of monitors) should be enabled by default?)

This pretty much has led me to a shortlist of 4 font families

Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts DejaVu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_fonts Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Sans_Pro

One alternative is Oxygen Sans (and its companion, Oxygen Mono), which is the default font in KDE (Plasma) 5: ,----[ https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Oxygen ] | The Oxygen typeface family is created as part of the KDE Project, a libre | desktop for the GNU+Linux operating system. The design is optimised for | the FreeType font rendering system and works well in all graphical user | interfaces, desktops and devices. `---- Look at just about any screen shot of the official KDE announcements to see how it looks. Example: https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.3.0.php Regarding the fonts you mentioned, I agree that Liberation is a bad choice. I used to use DejaVu as my UI font, but now find its characters to be too wide and not very elegant, especially with larger font sizes. I have also used Droid Sans, but found its characters to be much too narrow (that makes it an excellent font to use on smart phones and tablets, though). So my preference would be Oxygen, Source, Droid and DejaVu, in that order. -- Karl Ove Hufthammer E-mail: karl@huftis.org Jabber: huftis@jabber.no -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Richard Brown composed on 2015-08-21 14:01 (UTC+0200):

TLDR Version; - I suggest we set the default fonts in openSUSE to the Source Sans/Serif/Code family from Adobe.

If to be done at all, please delay until after Leap release, lest the highest volume ever, due to unforeseen consequences of a font change, of complaints about fonts following a new release befall....

Long Version/Explantion; One of the most common complaints we receive from users of openSUSE is 'poor font rendering'

This will not diminish before people stop using low density display devices, and it's hardly limited to openSUSE. The 6X12 pixel grid nominally available to draw a 9pt UI glyph is too granular, making poor the standard, regardless of DE. To be attractive to all but the very most discriminating, IMO, a 20px glyph box height would be the minimum required for producing 10pt fonts, roughly 50% more than the 96 DPI reference that all but retina-class desktop displays have been clinging close to for much too long. At 150% of 96, density has elevated enough that traditional and otherwise indispensible screen font smoothing techniques approach pointless or even invisible at normal viewing distances. ...

This pretty much has led me to a shortlist of 4 font families

Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

±0

DejaVu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts

Status Quo for (?non-Gnome?) openSUSE releases to date.

Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_fonts

Local status quo many years via fontconfig. :-D

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Sans_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Serif_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Han_Sans

I would not recommend Liberation as a default - as it's metrically identical to the Microsoft fonts they share many of the same 'ugliness' issues, and are generally old, tired, and work best on old screens instead of modern LCD's

+1

DejaVu's fonts were a strong contender, however I personally do not like the look of them as much compared to the Source Family of fonts. Also, they do not have a consistent 'feel' across their various Sans/Monospace/Serif types, which leads to openSUSE looking rather disjointed and messy if you set it up to use DejaVu fonts by default

I like them better than most fonts, so much more than most downloadable fonts that I have downloadable fonts disabled in most of my browser profiles' about:configs.

Droid fonts would be my second choice, and shares many of the good things I'm about to say about the Source family, however it's Mono font is not nearly as pretty as Source Code Pro, so on those grounds alone, I don't want to see it as the default

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Droids top all three of my fontconfig preference configurations.

So, why the Source Family? 1. It's designed by Adobe, and they know a thing or two about fonts 2. The fonts are all open source (SIL Open Font License) 3. Wide language support 4. All designed to be used in *User Interfaces* which, is what we're talking about using it for here 5. Much of the Source family is already used by openSUSE in our official branding ( https://opensuse.github.io/branding-guidelines/ ) and having the user interface reflect that will be a subtle way to subliminally imprint a consistent image of openSUSE on our users 6. The fonts all look great in every situation I've tested them in. They do not require any fancy settings like Subpixel hinting to look excellent 7. Modern, Contemporary looking. 8. Source Code Pro, the monospaced font, is very popular with everyone I know who's asked it 9. I've been testing it as my personal default for over 6 months and had no problems.

At what physical pixel density are you accustomed?

If there are any objections to this proposal, please speak up with your reasons below.

If I had to pick something other than DejaVu and Droid, from among any mentioned in this thread, it would probably be Noto. One characteristic that makes me favor Droid can be discerned from the Hufthammer screenshots: its native leading is apparently less, making for less wasted space in KDE (at least) UI contexts.

Otherwise Petr has already offered to do the work to make this happen

The problem from where I sit is more complicated than simply choosing a family. No doubt Source Pros are attractive, arguably more so than DejaVu at least WRT Serif. But, px "size" to px "size" and pt "size" to pt "size", every alternative to the current DejaVu produces smaller apparent height, with Source Sans Pro dead last in height among suggested contenders. Comparing can't be as simple as http://picpaste.de/pics/fonts-BKAuvjwG.1440220945.png and http://picpaste.de/pics/fonts-BKAuvjwG.1440236709.png . They are nice comparisons as far as they go, but they only show minimal context. http://hpjansson.org/temp/dejavu-cantarell-source.png is even more limiting. Karl Ove Hufthammer's screenshots (URLs copied here for convenience) DejaVu: http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/dejavu.png Droid: http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/droid.png Source Sans: http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/source-sans.png Oxygen-Sans: http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/oxygen.png http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/oxygen-big.png http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/oxygen-big-subpixel.png Noto: http://huftis.org/kritikk/opensuse-fonts/noto.png are limiting because because there is only one font family to see in each screenshot. Yet I do like the context they do provide. What no screenshots from this thread so far make patently obvious is: 1-openSUSE's (and Fedora's, and *buntu's, and Mageia's, and Mint's, and ???'s) default has been DejaVu (?except in Gnome?) for quite some years, AND, 2-DejaVu has the largest apparent physical size at any given nominal px or pt "size" of all font families expressly mentioned in this thread. Every other is smaller, and Source Sans Pro is clearly the smallest of the whole lot. The differences among individual sizes of each of them vary according to display density. The following are designed to so demonstrate (or help demonstrate, facilitating comparisons): Exemplar generators (suitable for loading in Gecko and KHTML browsers, as explained in a note on each): http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-sourcepro.html http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-face-systypes15.html http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-ui15.html Screenshot view facilitators (currently 24 total, by DPIs of 96, 108, 120 & 144, and by full, medium or slight hinting, taken on the latter two of the three URLs above): http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/syst150821dpifull.html (4 full hinting shots only) http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/syst150821all.html (12 shots with Nimbus, without Oxygen) http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/ui150823dpifull.html (4 full hinting shots only) http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/ui150823all.html (12 shots with Oxygen, without Nimbus) Direct server directory access: http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/ http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/syst15txtF.txt , http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/ui15txtF.txt and http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/Sys1508/ui15txtS.txt subjectively describe a few of of the individual differences that can be seen studying the images, or if viewed in appropriate context, their sources. Except maybe in Gnome, which I never use, and reputedly uses Cantarell instead of DejaVu, I see switching from DejaVu to anything else opening a Pandora's Box related to the apparent size change that will result, even if the default size were moved up from 9pt to 10pt, maybe especially so. And of course, people who need bigger fonts than default in any event (A11Y) will have an even bigger burden to configure their needed increase over default given a smaller physical size to start with, especially if the new family selection is the relatively diminutive Source Sans Pro. [note 1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig/2015-August/005547.html describes a reason why Oxygen is missing from the syst15* group above, and why I haven't posted this thread before now. [note 2] PT Sans, suggested in thread but not included among above URLs, according to my brief look @120 DPI, is nearly as small in apparent size as Source Sans Pro http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/font-ptsans.html -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015 14:01:24 +0200 Richard Brown wrote:

So, why the Source Family? 1. It's designed by Adobe, and they know a thing or two about fonts 2. The fonts are all open source (SIL Open Font License) 3. Wide language support 4. All designed to be used in *User Interfaces* which, is what we're talking about using it for here 5. Much of the Source family is already used by openSUSE in our official branding ( https://opensuse.github.io/branding-guidelines/ ) and having the user interface reflect that will be a subtle way to subliminally imprint a consistent image of openSUSE on our users 6. The fonts all look great in every situation I've tested them in. They do not require any fancy settings like Subpixel hinting to look excellent 7. Modern, Contemporary looking. 8. Source Code Pro, the monospaced font, is very popular with everyone I know who's asked it 9. I've been testing it as my personal default for over 6 months and had no problems.

If there are any objections to this proposal, please speak up with your reasons below.

I have found, Source Serif Pro doesn't include Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew glyphs. So, no way… http://susepaste.org/view/simple/90003413 https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif-pro/issues/4 -- WBR Kyrill