770 font size

[konttori]

I've posted a small comparison of using the default font size of 770 and using 11 px version by modifying gtkrc file. I recommend everyone to have a look at how user experience differs between them.

http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.com/

I have permanently switched to using 11 px fonts and I'm not coming back. Every single app is much better off with smaller font than it was with the humongous default font.

[disq]

of course, to change the "Theme 1" theme you have to edit "/usr/share/themes/default/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

Theme 1 is "default""
Theme 2 is "theme1/"
Theme 3 is "theme2/"
and so on...

here's a diff to make things easier:
--- gtkrc-orig 2006-03-31 14:24:26.772603624 +0300
+++ gtkrc-mod 2006-03-31 11:34:12.000000000 +0300
@@ -257,28 +257,28 @@
##############################

style "osso-SystemFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans 16.75"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans 11.75"
}

style "osso-EmpSystemFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans Bold 16.75"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans Bold 11.75"
}

style "osso-TitleFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans 16.75"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans 11.75"
}

style "osso-ButtonFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans 16.75"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans 14.75"
}


style "osso-SmallFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans 11.625"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans 9.625"
}

style "osso-LargeFont" {
- font_name = "Nokia Sans 29.5"
+ font_name = "Nokia Sans 22.5"
}

[fanoush]

It would be nice also to turn off antialiasing for small fonts like it is possible on linux desktop. If the freetype library on device contains patented bytecode interpreter, most web fonts (http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/) and Tahoma would look very nice with antialiasing turned off. I can sometimes see some advertisement in opera with pre-rendered fonts and they look much better that the tiny blurry ones.

[aflegg]

Personally, I'd hate to have the AA off: I find it improves readability in every circumstance, especially with the high resolution screen of the 770.

Admittedly, those exposed to Windows' "font smoothing" many moons ago might have a different opinion. Dunno where you might find an option on the device as-is...

[fanoush]

I said small fonts. It is a known fact that handcrafted bitmap (non-AA) fonts are better at small sizes than AA fonts. All good truetype (vector) fonts contain handcrafted bitmap versions for small sizes which is supposed to be not antialiased. for explanation see bottom of http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdtypo3.htm

[DaScud]

I just edited the gtkrc file for theme1 (the blue one) directly. Deleted the gtkrc.cache file and reloaded the theme and it works fine. I definitely like that i do not need to scroll to get to the extras menu. However, I am still getting used to the smaller font size for the radio etc.

Tks for the tip.

DaScud

[jayholler]

it is not working correctly for me. the font size certainly changes, but none of the theme images load, just greyish blocks. instead of deleting files in the theme directory i am mv ing them to gtkrc.bak and gtkrc.cache.bak
it should work fine by all accounts, any ideas?
also the location of the statusbar is getting screwed up.
the 770 will still work under this theme, but it look godawful.
any ideas what i'm doing wrong? should i just copy the default gtk files to a seperate folder?
i'm stuck.
are you guys gettinng new gtkrc.cache files showing up or does konttori's gtkrc file take care of that, ie replace the code which defines the links to the theme's images?

any help would be appreciated. perhaps someone could post their cli entries step by step for me?

[konttori]

i think that correct theme folder to edit is theme1. that could do trick.

[jayholler]

for whatever reason it isn't working for me, here is what the screen looks like after replacing the gtkrc file:

http://static.flickr.com/54/121046664_a04419cebb.jpg

i'm at a total loss here. i'm going to try to restore everything to defaults. if that is successful, i will try starting from scratch.

again, if someone could post a step by step from lauching xterm to completion, i would appreciate it. i like the increased functionality of the smaller fonts, but i need some type of skin. here is what it looks like right now:

http://static.flickr.com/42/121049400_eb25b416c5.jpg

UPDATE:

so, i got all the defaults set up properly. i tested each theme to make sure they worked as if the device as new to ensure all my files were lined up and correct. then, i modified the files according to konttori's instructions. rather than deleting or renaming the file, i created a new directory, .backup and moved gtkrc and gtkrc.cache from that location. then i inserted my vim created copy of konttori's modified gtkrc file. still getting the same issues. i just realized that i have the rootfsext on my device. i gotta try something else now. i think i might have this figured out.

UPDATE: Good god damn. it has nothing to do with the extrootfs. the files are located in the default directories. I saw these directories in /usr/share/themes :

Default
default
theme1
theme2
theme3

various experimentation with all of them yields the same results consistently for me.

Now I will post step by step what i do:


all on the 770 device

navigate to konttori's blog: Thoughts

click link to gtkrc

menu>edit>select all

menu>edit>copy

open x-term

sudo su -

cd /usr/share/themes/default/gtk-2.0

ls -al

cp gtkrc gtkrc.bak

vim gtkrc

i (insert)

menu>edit>paste(ctrl+v)

(esc key)

ZZ (writes file and closes vim)

mv gtkrc.cache gtkrc.cache.bak

exit (closes root shell)

exit (closes user shell and quits x-term)

extras>control panel>personalization

choose theme 4>apply>ok

personalization

choose theme 2 (theme1 in filesystem)>apply>ok



then i get the effect shown above, 11pt font, no skin images, just dull grey boxes. the statusbar is screwed up but restarting resolves that.

am i doing it wrong by writing the html page of gtkrc from kontorri's site to new file in vim? how are you guys doing it? i can't figure out why this wouldn't work. do i need to chmod the permissions perhaps?

ANOTHER UPDATE:

after changing the permissions to gtkrc to -rwxrwxrwx, and changing owner to user, the images for the background on the top bars appear, but the statusbar icons are still wonky, and everything else is that crappy grey.
the only possible issue i can conceive now is that somehow something got messed up in my method of copying the text from kontorri's gtkrc file and inserting same in vim. i would try putting the themes directories in sudoers but i don't think that will make a difference.
the two methods that may resolve this for me:

getting konttori's gtkrc file by some other method, or
some issue related to the customizations i have made previously to the system, ie using r&d mode i modified gainroot to allow me root access to the filesystem, i am using wolframs extrootfs script to use the rs-mmc to make my / ~744MB, i also added su to the sudoers file to allow me to launch a "true" root shell with the command: sudo su -, i also added sbin/swapon and sbin/swapoff to sudoers in order to use the load_plugin_aw to switch swapfile on rs-mmc card on and off easily, no x-term necessary, and finally i may have had swapfile on when originally trying out konttori's modified gtkrc file.

[konttori]

Ok, here's a simple how-to:

download the theme zip from: http://www.helsinki.fi/~konttori/MediaConverter/theme_test.zip

Connect your 770 to your comp. Unzip the file to the root of your mmc.

Disconnect 770. Open xterm (you must be in rd mode or otherwise have root access).
Execute following commands:
sudo gainroot
cp -R /media/mmc1/theme_test /usr/share/themes/theme_test

Ok. Theme is now installed. Close xterm. Open Control panel and go to personalization. Choose the new theme, cleverly titled: Urhon testiteema (which incidentally stands for Urhos test theme in finnish).

You're done.

[jayholler]

You rock Konttori, I will try this out later today. I still am stratching my head as to what was preventing me from getting your previous method to work. Oh well. I really look forward to trying this out.

again, thanks.

[jayholler]

Beautiful Konttori, it worked like a charm! Not only that, but you chose the blue theme I enjoy best out of the 4 default themes that come with the device. You are the man, thank you very very much! I love it.

[konttori]

Beautiful Konttori, it worked like a charm! Not only that, but you chose the blue theme I enjoy best out of the 4 default themes that come with the device. You are the man, thank you very very much! I love it.

Nice to hear that!

Did you notice that the top bar is slightly different from the default blue. This allowed cool 9 pixels of vertical space for all apps.

I'm currently in the progress of making a theme creator, but it will take quite some time to get it up and running in any meaningful way.

[aflegg]

I said small fonts. It is a known fact that handcrafted bitmap (non-AA) fonts are better at small sizes than AA fonts.

It's widely commented, but hardly a "known fact". Mostly by people who've never seen sub-pixel antialiasing with a well-hinted font.

All good truetype (vector) fonts contain handcrafted bitmap versions for small sizes which is supposed to be not antialiased.

Really? That's news to me, I knew they contained hinting and scaffolding information, and potentially slightly different vectors for different sizes; but I've never seen a vector font containing a bitmap version to be rendered in preference.

for explanation see bottom of http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdtypo3.htm

That webpage sets up a whole series of straw-man arguments. Changing the colours of an anti-aliased font to highlight the effect destroys the effect - and results in it looking crap.

With a 225dpi screen, it's practically impossible to see the individual pixels smoothing the aliasing so it's a very subtle (and effective) technique for improving the rendering.

Cheers,

Andrew

[fanoush]

It's widely commented, but hardly a "known fact". Mostly by people who've never seen sub-pixel antialiasing with a well-hinted font.

OK, agreed, it's widely commented then :) As for the well-hinted fonts, yes maybe. Can you give some exaple of well-hinted font? I think at small sizes there is no such thing. IMO this is said mostly by people who never seen good bitmap font ;-) The best font at small size I've seen so far is Tahoma (default in windows XP). Also default fonts in PalmOS at 320x320 are quite good.

I've seen cleartype in windows XP. I've seen freetype in my gentoo installation with bytecode interpreter enabled and subpixel rendeding turned on. But first thing I do is to disable cleartype in XP and disable subpixel rendering in KDE or GNOME for sizes less than 12. Subpixel rendering or antialiasing looks great at bigger sizes but for small sizes it produces very pretty and very smooth but almost unreadable crap which gives me a headache after reading it for longer time. Well at least it really is a known fact that blurry edges produce more eye strain than crisp, simple shapes. Fonts in Opera on N770 at 100% is nice example of this. But true that bigger fonts are very nice indeed.


Really? That's news to me, I knew they contained hinting and scaffolding information, and potentially slightly different vectors for different sizes; but I've never seen a vector font containing a bitmap version to be rendered in preference.


http://www.microsoft.com/typography/tt/sbit.htm

also see google cache, bottom of the page for nice description
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:15BoHbB-CXkJ:www.linotype.com/9-1752-9/liste.html%3FPHPSESSID%3Dc+truetype+bitmap+fonts
It is right there "Another area where bitmap fonts are being used is in the TrueType or OpenType format itself. It is possible to add bitmaps to TrueType fonts. More than that it is the preferred format used below sizes of 12 pt. From that point of view, bitmapping is the ultimate form of hinting."

Interesting that they shortened the article later a bit in favor of your opinion :) So I agree it is matter of personal opinion. My choice is readability and crisp shapes. Other people may prefer smooth looking fonts which are pretty but not so easy to the eyes.

[aflegg]

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...pe+bitmap+fonts
It is right there "Another area where bitmap fonts are being used is in the TrueType or OpenType format itself. It is possible to add bitmaps to TrueType fonts. More than that it is the preferred format used below sizes of 12 pt. From that point of view, bitmapping is the ultimate form of hinting."

Interesting. It says "possible", would be interesting to check my various font directories to see how many actually do provide bitmaps.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Karel Jansens]

I know for a fact that several of the TrueType fonts that came with my copy of OS/2 Warp 4 had bitmaps for the smaller point sizes. I don't believe Microsoft ever bothered.

[cantona]

I followed the directions - unzip => transfer to root on mmc1 - load xterm and execute kontori's steps. close xterm. go to personalization / themes but there is no new theme !?! only the original ones - what am i missing?