fonts

[TouchTerm Support]

we've added TTF support to the codebase, so we'll be able to add new
custom fonts to TT and TT Pro.

in the next update, we'll be including a couple of new fonts
(Bitstream Vera Mono, and SaxMono), which will hopefully increase
legibility at smaller font sizes.

please let us know if you have any recommendations of other fonts
you'd like to see!

[wo...@treellama.org]

It would be nice if TT could use the proper bold font instead of
overstrike bold. That would make bold text much more readable! Should
be possible once you have TTF support.

[TouchTerm Support]

thanks for pointing this out -- we'll definitely try it. the only
issue would be if it slows down drawing significantly, or adds too
large of an overhead loading in the additional fonts. we've got it
filed for at least prototyping for the 1.2/2.4 updates, and we'll post
further info as we make progress.

[TouchTerm Support]

we've also started prototyping subpixel fonts. we've got a pretty
basic ASCII-only subpixel font working, at sizes from 3x6 to 8x13. the
smaller fonts easily allow the full 80 columns to fit into the width
of the iPhone screen...and are more or less readable. :)

the main issues at this point are:

- it only works for white-on-black text

- it only works for ASCII characters -- anything else (primarily
international characters) is rendered using the normal font, and is
basically unreadable

but it still seems like it might be worth adding. thoughts? requests?

also, if anyone happens to know any resources for a more a extensive
library of distributable subpixel fonts, we'd love to hear any
suggestions... :)

[wo...@treellama.org]

By subpixel do you mean rendering the R G B components of the display
individually? How are those fonts different from regular bitmap fonts
(of which there are many free ones included in standard Linux
distributions)?

[Dean]

Developer of iSSH here. Just to save you the trouble, bear in mind
that the sub-pixel font rendering of FreeType is actually patented by
Microsoft. Also, sub-pixel font rendering technically only works in
portrait mode and no present sub-pixel rendering method exists that
works vertically.

In theory, any font with hinting (most TTF fonts) will render at a sub-
pixel level.

Dean

On Dec 20, 12:43 pm, TouchTerm Support <toucht...@jbrink.net> wrote:
> we've also started prototyping subpixel fonts. we've got a pretty

> basic ASCII-only subpixelfontworking, at sizes from 3x6 to 8x13. the

> smaller fonts easily allow the full 80 columns to fit into the width
> of the iPhone screen...and are more or less readable. :)
>
> the main issues at this point are:
>
> - it only works for white-on-black text
>
> - it only works for ASCII characters -- anything else (primarily

> international characters) is rendered using the normalfont, and is

> basically unreadable
>
> but it still seems like it might be worth adding. thoughts? requests?
>
> also, if anyone happens to know any resources for a more a extensive
> library of distributable subpixel fonts, we'd love to hear any
> suggestions... :)
>
> On Nov 26, 10:59 pm, TouchTerm Support <toucht...@jbrink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > we've added TTF support to the codebase, so we'll be able to add new
> > custom fonts to TT and TT Pro.
>
> > in the next update, we'll be including a couple of new fonts
> > (Bitstream Vera Mono, and SaxMono), which will hopefully increase
> > legibility at smallerfontsizes.
>
> > please let us know if you have any recommendations of other fonts

> > you'd like to see!- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[TouchTerm Support]

thanks for heads up. we've made some progress here, and actually the
results are looking pretty good -- getting pretty nice readability at
80 columns in portrait mode. re: landscape mode, we'd just use bitmaps
of rotated subpixel-rendered fonts, appropriate to the device
orientation...adds a little complication, but it's not too bad. in any
case, using portrait mode with the full screen above the keyboard is
probably the primary use case for the tiniest fonts -- 80 columns in
landscape mode is pretty readable already with normal fonts.

we've also got the legal issues re: distribution pretty much worked
out, so the main question is really whether there's much demand for
this? is it worth the extra time and effort to support these fonts, or
is the new bitstream vera font sufficient for small-text work, and we
should prioritize other features?

[TouchTerm Support]

yup, that's basically right -- subpixel is a technique used to get
slightly better resolution on LCD displays by taking advantage of
where the actual RGB components actually are in each pixel. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering -- and also
http://www.bagelturf.com/files/4f211532378b83797653f34c0b6c2af6-1059.php
and the linked articles for an interesting discussion of subpixel on
the iphone.) as they say in the article, for most cases the pixel
density is good enough on iphone that subpixel isn't really
necessary...but for squeezing out the tiniest possible font, it seems
to help. :)

but you bring up a good point -- even just using standard bitmap fonts
might provide a visible improvement over standard font rendering for
tiny fonts, and should be a lot simpler. if people would still like to
see crisper fonts at lower resolutions, we'll definitely consider this
too.

[treellama]

Perhaps they would be faster, as well. 2.3 seems a lot slower when
typing, but I don't have any conclusive evidence that TTF fonts are to
blame.

I primarily use TT in 80x24 landscape mode (which took a lot of trial
and error with the clumsy font slider to set up)--it's possible one of
the bitmap fonts out there would be a better fit. Vera at one size (I
don't know the actual number because the font size selector is a
slider) is just a little too small to fill the whole screen at 80x24,
and at the next size up it's too big.