Metrics Window: Add option to toggle hinting

[davelab6]

A user writes me,

metrics window seems awfully buggy, sometimes one makes changes that show the measurement but have no effect, or they have an effect but the measurement doesn't change!

• add a toggle option to the View menu, under the Anti Alias toggle option, 'Use Hinting', that toggles the use of hitning in the rendering of the metrics window, so users can toggle between the freetype modes of no hinting applied and hinting applied. The use of hinting in the metrics window is turned up by default by the 'AutoHint: 1' prefs being set, because to render the Metrics window FF is generating a binary font for freetype to use. I guess that for this new 'Use hinting', what FF should do is make a copy of the sf object, clear the PS hints in it, and generate that alongside the hinted version, and then allow switching between the two.
• Change the default value for this to 'off'

[vernnobile]

isn't that due to grid fitting? You will see that especially the smaller the text size used in the metrics window. I allways assumed this was because the glyphs in FForges metrics window are not being drawn by quartz etc, so they will not behave 100% like the text rendered by quartz.

On 21 Sep 2013, at 20:02, Dave Crossland notifications@github.com wrote:

A user writes me,

metrics window seems awfully buggy, sometimes one makes changes that show the measurement but have no effect, or they have an effect but the measurement doesn't change!

I reproduced this on mac - http://youtu.be/lUGdTa0griU

Font file is at http://understandingfonts.com/2013/09/Untitled1.sfd

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[davelab6]

Yeah its fixed by clearing the hints.

[vernnobile]

Yes. The real issue here is maybe that hints are much too easily auto
applied, with the inexperienced not knowing about it.
Another solution could be to add an option to the rendering of the metrics
window, so users can toggle between the freetype modes of no hinting
applied and hinting applied. Fontlab has that option. Also serves as a
render preview to see differences in the fonts apperance between osx, win,
etc
On 22 Sep 2013 05:58, "Dave Crossland" notifications@github.com wrote:

Yeah its fixed by clearing the hints.

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[davelab6]

Perhaps freetype can be told to ignore the hinting

[monkeyiq]

@davelab6 PR 820 uses an existing don't hint flag, please let me know if this works ok as I'm having trouble seeing differences here :|

[adrientetar]

Is this done? I'm not sure I can find the option in the menu...