Proposal: reduce base font size from 10pt to 9pt for Karmic Koala release

[Ethan Baldridge]

Conn said:
- Fonts currently look over-sized on the default configuration (96dpi, 10pt, subpixel smoothing & slight hinting)

This is the problem I believe. Why is the default always 96dpi instead of the correct information from the EDID?

$ xdpyinfo | grep -e "\(resolution\|dimensions\)"
  dimensions:    1680x1050 pixels (474x303 millimeters)
  resolution:    90x88 dots per inch

If we're not using the proper resolution info, the font sizes won't be consistent between monitors. I know this isn't the way Windows does it, but that's because Windows' font handling has always been broken, and will probably always continue to be broken. But back to a world where computers do logical things at all times, points are (supposed to be) a measure of the physical size of a displayed typeface (1 pt = 1/72.27 inch [TeX point] or 1/72 inch [PostScript point]), and thus in electronic form are necessarily based on the physical resolution of the medium. If I have two monitors next to each other, and one is 640x480 while the other is 1600x1200, a 10 point capital-M rendered on each in the same typeface should take up an equal amount of arc space to an eyeball equidistant from each monitor regardless of the physical dimensions of the monitors themselves.

I'm pretty sure this used to happen correctly without having to tweak anything, but I'm a little long in the tooth and my memory for dates sucks - that may have been in the days of XFree86 when FreeType2 first came out.

Also, the default smoothing and hinting is supposed to be different based on whether you're connected to a CRT or an LCD - I'm pretty sure Ubuntu does do this. If you connect to a CRT you'll see grayscale smoothing, full hinting (or best contrast, I forget which). LCDs look better with subpixel smoothing, although I usually set the hinting to best contrast anyway though. :) But I can't test that changing hinting styles changes apparent font size (it is supposed to, but very minimally for most [i.e. written to spec] typefaces), as gnome-appearance-properties has been broken for me since very early in the Karmic dev cycle.

-Ethan