font anti-aliasing

[NaFIann]

With all the work on making rockbox look better, I figure this is the big one I haven't seen so far.
So, is anyone working on this? I think it could really improve the way rockbox looks, and could be made optional for the players that can't handle it... Are there any plans for this at all?

[[Saint]]

NaFIann,

Yes, there is/was some work being done/done regarding this...

Have a look here


[St.]

[karashata]

A note about the tracker link [St.] posted, the most recent activity was December 17, 2009, and as such the most recent patches may not necessarily work with the current code, if you wanted to give them a try.

I believe they also require specially built fonts, as the fonts supplied with Rockbox cannot be anti-aliased, since they are essentially bitmap fonts that have been tweaked to some extent (whereas anti-aliasing ideally needs vector fonts).

[iPodFoo]

After multifonts, this would be the next great leap in quality and an even better looking rockbox! i cant wait! 

[MajiKool Dragonâ„¢]

where can i find the fonts the those in rockbox were created from?

[karashata]

I believe they're shipped along with the source code, they are .bdf files...

[[Saint]]

MajiKool Dragonâ„¢

where can i find the fonts the those in rockbox were created from?

You can find the source files (.bdf) for the Rockbox fonts here


[St.]

[MajiKool Dragonâ„¢]

thank you.

how would i convert those to say.... ttf?

[[Saint]]

MajiKool Dragonâ„¢,

The software you use for this is a matter of personal preference, and probably dependant on your operating system also.

I found numerous tools for this task by simply Googling:

"convet .bdf to .ttf"

I hope I don't sound like a smartass saying that, I simply don't want to say "Sure, you can use 'X' program to do this..." without knowing a: Your level of expertise, or b: Which OS you are using.

I'm sure you'll find one suited to your needs.


[St.]

[torne]

Actually, converting BDF to TTF is not a sensible thing to be doing, because BDF is a bitmap font format, and TTF is an outline format. You can convert outline formats to bitmap formats (that's what font rendering is), but the other way can only be done by dodgy tracing effects which produce awful output unless painstakingly tweaked by a human font designer, or by creating a fake-bitmap-font (where the outline follows strict horizontal and vertical lines of the BDF font's pixels) which does not rescale (since the square pixels will just get bigger).

[fallenturtle]

Am I to understand correctly that there are no plans to make AA fonts permanently part of Rockbox? Is the only way to add the patch via recompiling the code?

[torne]

There are no plans to make *this implementation* of AA fonts part of Rockbox, because we don't like it for various reasons (some of which are discussed in this thread or in the flyspray entry for the patch). If someone wrote an implementation we liked, it could be included.

[fredwbauer]

Torne, what specific objections do you have to the anti-aliased fonts implementation in FS#8961? I understand that you oppose the general idea of AA-fonts but do you also have an objection to the way that they're implemented?

[torne]

I've not looked at the patch; I was stating the general opinion I've observed when it's been discussed amongst developers. Read the flyspray discussion.

I don't oppose AA fonts at all, why would you get that idea? I don't care about it enough to implement it myself, is all.

[fredwbauer]

Torne, sorry. I just got the impression you were opposed to it.