Thanks andy

this is really good to get such a kind of news. I'm really impressed.  
I should learn
and try to do something too.

One guy is working on Gutenberg a new pretty printer in VW. As soon  
as it will be working
and tests are green I will port it to squeak (would be cool with  
shout). I imagine typing and seeing the
code colored and put at the right place (we can dream).

PS: Shout is working so well with the students (thanks thanks thanks).

On 21 mars 06, at 12:24, Andrew Tween wrote:

> Hi Stef,
> Sorry about that. I'll check my e-mail settings.
>
> Here is an update on the sub-pixel anti-aliasing work I have been  
> doing...
>
> I ported some of Henrik's sub-pixel rendering code to 3.9.
> Enough to get the fonts that he had produced to load, and display.
> But, since his work was unfinished, there are some things which  
> don't work.
> (This is not a criticism of Henrik, the comments in his code  
> indicate that
> he was intending to work on these things).
> Specifically, from Henrik's project notes...
>     "No support for synthetic variants (emboldened, underline  
> etc.), nor
> colored type.
>      No bg color other than white in paragraphs (but in QuickPrint)
>      Doesn't work properly in other than 32 bit display depth (for  
> Squeak)
> because of BitBlt limitations. "
>
> The lack of support for coloured text means that it doesn't work  
> with Shout.
> I am extremely reluctant to release/support 2 packages that don't  
> work with
> each other.
>
> The production of the stretched character glyphs, in Henrik's code,  
> relied
> on the Freetype library.
> Other people are working on interfacing to Freetype (the Sophie  
> project, for
> example), and I don't want to duplicate their efforts by 'doing my own
> thing'.
>
> For the reason's above, I have started from a blank sheet, with  
> these goals.
>     1. Must work with, or without, Freetype. (i.e. work with  
> exisiting TTF
> support)
>     2. Must support any foreground/background colour combination  
> (including
> Transparency).
>     3. Should work with any display depth (or at least with >= 8 bit)
>     4. Would be nice to also fix the advance width problem (enable  
> glyphs to
> overlap)
>     5. Awareness of any patent issues.
>         I don't know what we can/should do about those patent  
> issues, but at
> least we can make informed decisions.
>
> I have made some progress on this...
>
>     I have created a new BitBlt mode that has a separate alpha  
> channel for
> each rgb subcomponent.
>         This enables Transparency/Translucency, and means that  
> there is no
> need to cache separate glyphs per foreground colour.
>         At the moment this only works with 32 bit display depth, and
> requires a patched VM.
>
>     I can create stretched glyphs using the existing Balloon /TTF  
> rendering.
>         These are still blurry (mainly in the vertical direction.  
> This is
> due to no hinting/grid fitting).
>         It is also very slow - I haven't improved the TTCFont  
> caching, so
> the caches keep getting rebuilt.
>
>     I can fake the Freetype support by using Windows API to create
> stretched/hinted/grid fitted glyphs.
>         This works well, text is very clear, but there are issues  
> with some
> italic glyphs becoming distorted.
>         I think this is a bug in the Windows API.
>
>    I have researched the patents that apply in this area.
>         So far I have uncovered 16 US, and 1 worldwide patent held/ 
> applied
> for by Microsoft.
>
> So, work is progressing, as time allows, but time is in short  
> supply at the
> moment.
>
> I am deliberately hesitating before sharing any of this stuff, mainly
> because of the patent issues,
> but also because I want to get it working with Freetype first.
>
> More later...
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "stéphane ducasse" <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch>
> To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
> <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 7:43 AM
> Subject: Henrik antialising
>
>
>> Hi guys
>>
>> did one of you hear about andy tween the cool father of SHOUT.
>> Way back he said that he was willing to harvest Henrik antialiasing
>> font rendering.
>> I tried to contact him but got no reply (may be a spam filter  
>> problem).
>>
>> Stef
>>
>>
>