MacOS Sequoia 15.3.2, M3, successful build: text rendering differs in Emacs 30 at medium weight

[alexander-yakushev]

Hello! I've just installed this using https://github.com/pkryger/homebrew-emacsmacport-exp. The command was:

brew install emacs-mac-exp --with-native-compilation --with-emacs-big-sur-icon --HEAD

The compilation completed successfully, and the binary launches fine, the native compilation of packages succeeded with some warnings. The one thing that puzzles me is that the text looks... weird. At first, I thought that gets rendered in FHD instead of 4K, but maybe it's just bolder.

The new 30.1 build:

My old 29.4 from railwaycat:

I use Fira Code like this:

(custom-set-faces
 '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil 
                :overline nil :underline nil :slant normal :weight medium :height 150 
                :width normal :foundry "nil" :family "Fira Code")))))

[jdtsmith]

More weights were added in recent versions of emacs on Mac, including for the first time a real medium; see commit ff63da2. Probably what you set as medium before was actually picking the nearest weight of normal. So maybe try weight normal instead of medium...

[alexander-yakushev]

Thanks for the response!

[jdtsmith]

Please test and let me know if that was the issue.

[alexander-yakushev]

Yes, setting the weight to normal matches or almost matches medium from 29.4. Thanks!

[hmelman]

I think I might be seeing this too. This the NEWS file displayed in variable-pitch face which is using Arial with 29.1 on the left and 30 on the right.

In 30 I've set the weight to medium and it says it's using: mac-ct:--Arial-regular-normal-normal--14---*-p-0-iso10646-1 (#x2C).

In 29 it says: mac-ct:--Arial-medium-normal-normal--14---*-p-0-iso10646-1 (#x2C)

[hmelman]

I also notice that svg's created with svg-lib-tag are off-centered, not sure if this related. This is the version displayed in Emacs 30, I'm sure in Emacs 29 the text was (at least more) vertically centered.

I'd show it in Emacs 29, but I can't load my init in Emacs 29, I get errors loading some .elc files about an invalid docstring and I can't quite narrow that down. If anyone can point me at something about this I'd appreciate it.

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Invalid (or missing) doc string ("/Users/hmelman/....")
signal(error ("Invalid (or missing) doc string ("/Users/hmelman/...."))
error("Invalid (or missing) doc string %S" ("/Users/hmelman/.emacs.d/elpa/transient-20250701.12..." . 19417))
custom-declare-face(transient-heading ((t :inherit font-lock-keyword-face)) ("/Users/hmelman/.emacs.d/elpa/transient-20250701.12..." . 19417) :group transient-faces)
require(transient)

[hmelman]

I have now built Emacs 30.2 myself on macOS 15.6.1 MacBook Air (15" M4 2025), and the svg problem has been fixed.