In Plasma, the Fonts page is being fixed so that the default sub-pixel anti-aliasing and hinting settings reflect the true system defaults; see https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/merge_requests/2140.
While testing this, I found that the defaults in Fedora aren't ideal: hinting is set to "slight", which is fine, but sub-pixel anti-aliasing is set to "none", which isn't.
It appears that the hinting setting is enforced by /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf, but there isn't any such file to set default sub-pixel anti-aliasing style to something.
/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf
We can probably do something to set this...
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Issue tagged with: experience
We'll talk to the fontconfig maintainers about setting this by default.
I'll take this action.
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Assignee reset
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Issue assigned to ngompa
Sent an email to @tagoh and @rstrode. Awaiting response.
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Issue tagged with: pending-action
Well, basically we expect "antialias" is true by default. it isn't the case in KDE? I could enable it in fontconfig though.
It appears that the hinting setting is enforced by /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf
This isn't exactly true. default config in fontconfig such as them are only enabled if it isn't set. Given that some desktop has "hintfull" for example, fontconfig adds "hintslight" to hintstyle. most toolkits reads a first item only so "hintfull" is used for them. that is the trick.
We could do the same for antialias but I'm wondering why KDE doesn't enable it by default?
In general, Plasma respects distro defaults rather than overriding them. It's just a difference of design philosophy compared to other more opinionated DEs. This bites us a lot, but we feel like it's good to help distros improve their own defaults by exposing gaps like this.
I appreciate your getting involved to help fix this, thanks!
I added config files to disable/enable antialiasing in fontconfig upstream git: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/commit/0825a178e82c58ae97e908d49e5ad7abe88ed7f5
will backport this to Fedora soon.
Thanks, but this issue is actually about sub-pixel hinting being set to None by default rather than RGB. I think we'll still need that even with your changes.
Ah, right. sorry. this one: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/commit/2b6afa02ab2b7dd3796a48cf47896c4c6de4d6ba
Oh cool, thanks!
So this should be enabled upstream by default now?
Yes, that would be 2.14.1.
Awesome, thanks a lot. So I guess there's nothing to do on the Fedora side, and we'll inherit that change automatically, right?
Once 2.14.1 is coming into Fedora, yes.
Great, so I guess there's nothing for Fedora to do here. Closing. Thanks again!
Metadata Update from @ngraham: - Issue close_status updated to: Deferred to upstream - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
I have pushed 2.14.1 to rawhide. please test it if you like. If that looks good, I can backport it for f37 if you want. just FYI.
I applied your package on top of Fedora 36 and it's working perfectly. I'd support a backport to 37, and even 36 too.
Thank you for testing. I've pushed updates for f36 https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-052b1d9bb0 and f37 https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-bcc0607a4e
I just did a clean install of Fedora 37 on a new machine, and can verify that it has fontconfig-2.14.1. However we still don't get slight RGB sub-pixel rendering by default. In System Settings, the Fonts KCM says "None" in that combobox. However if I click on the "Defaults" button, it changes to RGB, inheriting the system's actual default value. And then after applying and restarting apps, we actually do get slight RGB sub-pixel rendering.
So the Fonts KCM thinks that RGB is the system's default value, but it's not set to that by default. Do we have a Fedora-sprcific override here or something?
Metadata Update from @ngraham: - Issue status updated to: Open (was: Closed)
Not that I know of? https://pagure.io/fedora-kde/kde-settings/blob/rawhide/f/usr/share/kde-settings/kde-profile/default/xdg/kdeglobals
Ok, I will investigate and see if this is a KDE bug.
BTW this change seems affecting non-GTK applications on GNOME: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2137825 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues/337
Does it work for KDE?
It works for Plasma.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/merge_requests/244
We have different fix in Fedora already. "rgba" is set for KDE only: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fontconfig/c/dbbbc581825d1ecb6323e40106395508bf02ca07?branch=rawhide
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