566523 - Turn on subpixel antialiasing for everything if you have an LCD, regardless of system preference

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

(Note: this is filed as part of the “Paper Cut” bugs — we assume that there may be multiple existing bugs on this. Please make them block this bug, and we will de-dupe if they are indeed exactly the same. Thanks!)

From the Reddit thread:
“I would use Firefox, but the fonts look horribly aliased compared to Explorer and I don't know why.”

Recommendation:
As long as we can detect whether you have a CRT monitor (and not do it in that case), we should enable subpixel antialiasing on OSes that support it. The few people in the world that really hate subpixel antialiasing should get an about:config knob to twiddle.

This is a classic case of focusing on the edge cases of a few people hurting the majority of users. This is even the default behavior for the native browser on Windows at the moment.

Comment 1

[Karl Tomlinson (:karlt)]

If Firefox is going to override the system settings, for which there is UI, would it make sense to have UI in Firefox also?

(In reply to comment #0)
> The few
> people in the world that really hate subpixel antialiasing should get an
> about:config knob to twiddle.

I'm sure there will be strong views in both camps.

I guess I wouldn't be too surprised if more people preferred subpixel antialiasing over no antialiasing at all.

However, I wonder why I can't find system UI for turning on regular antialiasing at regular font sizes.  (Usually antialiasing is used at large and small font sizes).  A survey of user preferences between regular hinted antialiasing, and the blurry vertical stems and jagged almost-horizontal strokes of XP's ClearType might be more interesting.

Comment 2

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

This is marked as an all platforms bug but the description seems to be related to Windows, specifically Windows XP.  There's already a bug for using Cleartype rendering on XP for content (like IE), bug 504698.  Vista/Win7 already default to using Cleartype so I'm assuming there isn't additional work related to those platforms.

An additional caveat is that once DirectWrite rendering is enabled for Win7/Vista there will be far better parity across platforms.  XP will always be a stepchild of sorts but at least Cleartype rendering will improve things a tad.

Recommend closing this bug as a dupe unless there's additional related work.

Comment 3

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Adjusting target platform, and I'll let limi decide if this is an exact dupe.  Either way, definitely something that we need to get fixed for XP.

Comment 4

[Joe Drew (not getting mail)]

John, do IE7 or IE8 force Cleartype on on Windows Vista or 7? (I know they do on XP.)

Comment 5

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> John, do IE7 or IE8 force Cleartype on on Windows Vista or 7? (I know they do
> on XP.)

No. On Vista/Win7, Cleartype is enabled by default system-wide.  The option to force Cleartype rendering in IE7/8 is not enabled (dig through the Advanced options, it's in the big honkin list).  So if a user disables Cleartype system-wide in Vista/Win7, IE will render without Cleartype in both chrome and content.

Comment 6

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Attachment: patch, force Cleartype rendering on XP from content, including system fonts

Current trunk code forces on Cleartype rendering on XP for downloadable fonts.  This also forces it on for system fonts (XP only).  about:config options are available to disable this.

Comment 7

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Comment on attachment 450298 [details] [diff] [review]
patch, force Cleartype rendering on XP from content, including system fonts

Looks good to me, tested it on an XP box with cleartype off. Do you want to ask for review, jtd?

Comment 8

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

We will want to be careful about cleartype changes. And is this bug even applicable anymore?

Comment 9

[Asif Youssuff]

Windows XP is no longer supported https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-windows-xp-and-vista so this feels like a WONTFIX to me.