Keep the "Disable DirectWrite" option (GDI font rendering)

palikacska

palikacska

More than two months ago Chromium developers Ilya Kulshin and Scott Graham created a patch that would remove support for GDI font rendering completely from the Chromium codebase.
https://codereview.chromium.org/1919573002
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=579678
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/1acd6b6af8c9ef59fe7227faff4585310e5c2ec8

They've done this without any direct consent from users and with a reason like since we have already sorted out support for XP/Vista, we don't need GDI anymore. They've done this despite the fact that a lot of users wanted to get rid of DirectWrite after it became default in the stable releases of Chromium and Chrome. They've done this despite the fact that GDI is still fully supported in Windows 7 which is the most widely-used (and also the most mature, most stable) Windows today. Windows 7 is officially supported by Microsoft. As a consequence, GDI is also officially supported by Microsoft as it's part of the operating system. Thus, GDI is supposed to be supported and offered as a choice like any other platform-specific settings in Chromium. Furthermore, DirectWrite is incapable of giving the same look and feel as GDI, as you don't need glasses to see this in the comparison below: For those who prefer grayscale anti-aliasing, this means a serious degradation in quality and readability.

Just compare this sample image ... (DirectWrite)
http://s32.postimg.org/7fmcwhv45/x_dw.png
... to this (GDI).
http://s32.postimg.org/4zp4we2f9/x_gdi.png

Make sure you view the sample images in their original sizes.

Of course you can turn on ClearType, however there are people (even if we are a minority) who do not prefer ClearType and any kind of sub-pixel rendering. ClearType uses sub-pixels for smoothing font edges which is basically violating the original purpose of sub-pixels and by this it pollutes the color space that results in color fringes and bleeding. There are many displays with different (mostly lower) contrast ratios on which you simply can't tune ClearType well, it will always bleed or have noticeable color fringes. Also, for notebooks used with different backlight brightness levels (day/night) sometimes there is no universal settings without noticeable bleeding or color fringes. Even though the ClearType rendering of GDI is poorer than of DirectWrite, at grayscale rendering the winner is definitely GDI and it has done a really good job for several years: sharp, well-hinted fonts and even sharper edges (even sharper than DirectWrite with ClearType on).

Since DirectWrite was introduced, a lot of people have complained about less readable fonts, seeking to disable DirectWrite and switch back to the good old GDI. See a few of these topics below.
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=405445
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Q6QGBRvULbQ
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/xoav3jpRMPc
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/VStr-JaPbwQ
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/bkFBZbeMklk
https://forums.opera.com/topic/16022/disabling-option-to-disable-directwrite-font-rendering-in-opera-beta-39-0-2256-15/5 (Opera is Chromium-based)
https://forums.opera.com/topic/9812/opera-blurry-fonts
https://forums.opera.com/topic/5777/changed-fonts-in-some-sites
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/vivaldi-browser/2237-font-rendering-in-vivaldi-is-an-issue (Vivaldi is Chromium-based)
http://superuser.com/questions/803637/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37
http://www.ngohq.com/news/25137-how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/4me0ol/cant_find_a_way_to_disable_directwrite_after_the/
http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2015/03/chrome-directwrite-2/
https://superusersome.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37/
http://www.magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13765
http://www.teamfortress.tv/21248/disabling-directwrite-in-chrome
(... and many-many more)

However, the purpose of keeping GDI is not about preferring DirectWrite or not. It's about free choice. The free choice that is being taken away from us right now, by Chromium developers. Opera could give it us back.

Please keep the Disable DirectWrite option.

A Former User

Just compare this sample image ... (DirectWrite)
http://s32.postimg.org/7fmcwhv45/xdw.png
... to this (GDI).
http://s32.postimg.org/4zp4we2f9/xgdi.png

==>
Just compare this sample image ... (DirectWrite) http://s32.postimg.org/7fmcwhv45/x_dw.png ... to this (GDI). http://s32.postimg.org/4zp4we2f9/x_gdi.png

Since DirectWrite was introduced, a lot of people have complained about less readable fonts, seeking to disable DirectWrite and switch back to the good old GDI. See a few of these topics below.
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=405445
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Q6QGBRvULbQ
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/xoav3jpRMPc
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/VStr-JaPbwQ
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/bkFBZbeMklk
https://forums.opera.com/topic/16022/disabling-option-to-disable-directwrite-font-rendering-in-opera-beta-39-0-2256-15/5 (Opera is Chromium-based)
https://forums.opera.com/topic/9812/opera-blurry-fonts
https://forums.opera.com/topic/5777/changed-fonts-in-some-sites
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/vivaldi-browser/2237-font-rendering-in-vivaldi-is-an-issue (Vivaldi is Chromium-based)
http://superuser.com/questions/803637/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37
http://www.ngohq.com/news/25137-how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/4me0ol/cantfindawaytodisabledirectwriteafter_the/
http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2015/03/chrome-directwrite-2/
https://superusersome.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37/
http://www.magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13765
http://www.teamfortress.tv/21248/disabling-directwrite-in-chrome
(... and many-many more)

==>
Since DirectWrite was introduced, a lot of people have complained about less readable fonts, seeking to disable DirectWrite and switch back to the good old GDI. See a few of these topics below. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=405445 https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Q6QGBRvULbQ https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/xoav3jpRMPc https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/VStr-JaPbwQ https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/bkFBZbeMklk https://forums.opera.com/topic/16022/disabling-option-to-disable-directwrite-font-rendering-in-opera-beta-39-0-2256-15/5 (Opera is Chromium-based) https://forums.opera.com/topic/9812/opera-blurry-fonts https://forums.opera.com/topic/5777/changed-fonts-in-some-sites https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/vivaldi-browser/2237-font-rendering-in-vivaldi-is-an-issue (Vivaldi is Chromium-based) http://superuser.com/questions/803637/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37 http://www.ngohq.com/news/25137-how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome.html https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/4me0ol/cant_findawaytodisabledirectwriteafter_the/ http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2015/03/chrome-directwrite-2/ https://superusersome.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/how-to-disable-directwrite-in-google-chrome-37/ http://www.magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13765 http://www.teamfortress.tv/21248/disabling-directwrite-in-chrome (... and many-many more)

Use Markdown.

What is GDI?

palikacska

palikacska

From Wikipedia:
The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a Microsoft Windows application programming interface and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers.

In earlier versions of Windows (e.g. XP) fonts (as well as other graphical objects) were mainly rendered using GDI. Windows 7 also has full support of GDI, but it also has a new interface called DirectWrite.

donq

donq

Although I have 'mastered' Cleartype on all my displays, I am always for additional options - thereby I support this suggestion fully.

(A side note - we in our company are developing some financial software and we prefer GDI font redering over GDI+ or DirectWrite - it just creates a bit better and more uniform look even for ClearType environments.)

palikacska

palikacska

Opera has always been about customizability. Google is now taking the freedom of choice away from its users. Here would be the chance for Opera Developers to act add continue supporting GDI. Like they continue supporting Windows XP by providing security patches for version 36.X.

ownmaster

ownmaster

I will copy here my post from another Opera forum.

Dear Opera developers,

Please give back an option to disable DirectWrite. A lot of people do not like (actually HATE) blurry fonts. You can start considering of dropping this option after 10 years, when everybody will use high PPI screens, so there will be no difference between sh..tty ClearType and normal fonts (BTW, at that time all those anti-aliasing 'technologies' will be useless, cause of (again) high PPI).

Please don't post here 'explanations' of why it can't be done. Everybody already know that the problem is in Chromium. OK. But Chromium is an open source project and, as I know, Opera devs are participating in that project, so you can either take it back (which is the preferred option - cause there are some other tools like Atom editor, which will be f..cked up as well after moving to latest Chromium) or make a fork.

You did a great job till version 38, and now new Opera is not much worse than the old one, and in many aspects is better. So, I guess, you can slow down for a moment with new releases to cover this topic. This is a Major feature for many people.

If this is not a place to make a request to devs/company, let's consider where we (Community!) can make a proper request to the Chromium/Opera devs.

P.S. For now I have to stay at v38, and also use Firefox (and you all know that Firefox is going to move to Chromium too, so there is no place to hide for this sh..t).

ownmaster

ownmaster

BTW, first post mentions Windows 7 as the mostly used OS, so it looks like this option is for old OSes.
But its not!
I use Windows 10 with crystal clear old-school fonts and I need this option on this LATEST Microsoft OS.