AnonymousPro: Still blurred fonts

[im-n1]

Back then I reported this issue. Today I tried new fonts (2 months old) and there is a certain advance but the result is not perfect. See:

Original Anonymous Pro

Patched version

Sizing and spacing seems good but the font is lil bit blurred out and faded.
Terminal: Alacritty 0.12

[Finii]

The patched from font originates where? Release package, self patched, ...?

Edit: Correct typo

[Finii]

Maybe the font is too old. Multiple bugs tackling baseline-to-baseline spacing and also regarding hinting/antialiasing have been fixed for v3.0.0 which is about to be released. Maybe I should provide you with a new version that you can test. Then I do not need to replicate your issue with an old font and test if it has been fixed with v3.0.0. For that I would need to install your client, etc pp (time maybe better spent with preparing the pending release).

[Finii]

Is 'Original Anonymous Pro' our source or the real source? Because I just noticed we patch a patched version 🙄

[Finii]

Obviously the font we use as source is a Anonymous Pro Minus variant.

Interestingly the Minus variant (without embedded bitmaps) is available as 1.003 while the ttf with bitmaps in only availabe as 1.002.

I would update our source to the original source. The question remains if you used a self patched font (from the original source), or a pre-patched font? I see that a lot of settings are lost in our source (all the stuff that fontforge does not preserver and that we now post-patch copy over from the source font in the 'tweak' stage.

I guess I have a build-from-source alacritty somewhere... searching

[Finii]

Hmm, can not reproduce

Top: Original Anonymous Pro 1.002; bottom: Anonymice Pro Nerd Font v2.3.3

Your images looks like one font is rendered with antialiasing and the other without. Maybe.

[im-n1]

@Finii

1. i use patched font from this repo - master branch
2. try smalles sizes maybe?
3. my original (the sharp and non patched version) is this one - you can try to patch it by yourself and we will see

[Finii]

Regarding 3... I just tried to exchange the Anonymous Pro to the real repo (https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro), but that font triggers a bug in fontforge :-( fontforge/fontforge#5230

So now I started to debug fontforge ...
Maybe I should stop that soon, and continue on with 3.0.0 🤔

[Finii]

The embedded bitmaps almost certainly are destroyed by fontforge...:

Looks good otherwise.

[im-n1]

So the issue is in fonrforge which means you cant do anything about that?

[Finii]

No, at least I do not believe that. When I use the original Anonymous Pro alacritty says something contradicting regarding bitmaps...:

I'm not sure what that means. Anyhow, the bitmaps are only in sizes 10..13, and I guess you see the problem also with bigger sizes? Your screenshot looks like bigger size.

I have very limited knowledge about bitmap fonts, while according to #329 you have :-)
So from the looks it seems that the bitmaps are broken (if the bitmaps are used in your setup).
I have no clue how it should look like in alacritty -vvv when bitmaps are used, and/or how I enforce bitmaps, etc pp.
I have a problem with alacritty anyhow, the usual executables do not run on my machine - that is the reason why I self-built that thing. Maybe it's my unsupported graphics 🤷‍♀️

Before commit 946c1d0 font-patcher was not even able to preserve bitmaps at all.
That is in v2.3.0-RC, so it should be in the fonts you downloaded. Ah no, the source did not contain bitmaps.

I can prepare you a new AnonymicePro Nerd Font v3.0.0 that you could check. Because that will really include bitmaps, maybe that will be the difference then. Or do you see the effect also with bigger sizes, beyond bitmaps?

As I showed, I can not see the effect right now.
I believe you are on Arch, maybe I remember wrongly. What you could try is changing the antialiasing and hinting settings - although I do not know if alacritty even obeys them. Maybe that will point us in the right direction.

And/or it would be helpful to check if the effect is also there in other applications. Other terminals and also text processors like writer.

Antialias and Hinting settings for Gnome

[Finii]

Please find the patched-with-bitmaps fonts here: https://github.com/Finii/nerd-fonts/tree/master/patched-fonts/AnonymousPro

[Finii]

Some tables are missing after patching, and EBDT (Embedded Bitmap Data Table) is smaller 🙄

[Finii]

Had a look at your screenshot in huge magnification...
This for sure looks like hinting hitting you...

Bottom-right: Original font. Click to enlarge

Patching did not show a baseline-to-baseline metrics warning, so that is probably also solved meanwhile.

[Finii]

Already did the change to bitmap embedded Anonymous Pro with #1175.

Please check after v3.0.2 if that has been improved.

Closing for now.

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