How do I replace Cleartype with OS X's lookalike?

By belutlah
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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belutlah

Posted
Posted

I've been trying to look for special mods to Windows that'll change text rendering to PDF style. To get what I'm mentioning, you can try Apple's Safari 3 browser for Windows.

I've been trying to look for methods of emulating the said behavior. Sadly, all I can find are infos on how to enable/disable/tweak Cleartype. Is it possible to change the way Windows renders all these fonts?

Please, refrain from posts such as:

- "Why would you want blurry text? Cleartype's WAAY better!"

- "To tweak Cleartype, go to Microsoft's .... or download PowerToys..."

Community Regular

Fairlytayleree

Posted
Posted

Your Computer Shopper esque answer would now be to get OSX and try some emulators for your compiled Win32 stuff (which is probably just about 80386 enough to work with one which would render the fonts with mac os call).

I wouldn't know where to start, saved you the cover price of Computer Shopper in any event.

:rolleyes:

Grand Master

Julius Caro

Posted
Posted
I've been trying to look for special mods to Windows that'll change text rendering to PDF style. To get what I'm mentioning, you can try Apple's Safari 3 browser for Windows.

I've been trying to look for methods of emulating the said behavior. Sadly, all I can find are infos on how to enable/disable/tweak Cleartype. Is it possible to change the way Windows renders all these fonts?

Please, refrain from posts such as:

- "Why would you want blurry text? Cleartype's WAAY better!"

- "To tweak Cleartype, go to Microsoft's .... or download PowerToys..."

After using vista, os x and ubuntu on the same monitor... I gotta say that mac looks the best. Well, vista doesn't look bad either, it's just a matter of consistency. Both vista and os x use the same hinting/antialiasing on all fonts except for small sizes in some cases. But ubuntu is a tragic mess, some apps will show fonts two points smaller than what the default is, small fonts are hinted/antialised and the results depend on the fonts. So you are safe with some fonts, and majorly screwed with some others. I think the reason ubuntu dosnt have uber sexy font rendering for ALL fonts is because the most used methods for achieving those things are patented by evil companies.

You can install the ClearType tweak for xp, which according to this, it works on vista. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...-windows-vista/

I guess it deals with a couple of registry keys that handle cleartype.

You could try!! Although the problem with cleartype is that fonts are 'thinner', which is great if you are close to the monitor. OS X is better if you are slightly further away

Grand Master

+shift. MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
There's not a way to change it to be like the one in OS X, as far as I know. There's a plug-in, somewhere, that will achieve the OS X effect in Firefox, though.

Do you happen to know the name of this plugin?

Grand Master

kylejn

Posted
Posted
Do you happen to know the name of this plugin?

Hmm, I don't remember off the top of my head. IIRC, it made sites written in Japanese look really nice, but the rest of the text got too muddled, so I removed it. I think it has to do with the Safari rendering engine, though, so maybe try Googling along those lines. If I think of it, I'll post it.

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Cleartype is just MS's name for Sub-pixel anti aliasing, OS X already does this.

The difference is that OS X tries to retain the form of the font, and Windows tries to snap it to the pixel grid, the Windows method is better for low resolution displays, OS X's is better for high resolution displays. I don't think it is possible to change it (MS would have to do that)

Grand Master

gigapixels Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
It is possible, I use Mac-Like font smoothing on my Vista machine. I just run GDI++ in the background and my fonts are all sexy =D.

Some light reading for you: http://reader.feedshow.com/show_items-feed...0af4f39972ff59a

So all you have to do is run that gditray.exe application in the background and it works? Or is there something I'm missing?

Grand Master

Lee G. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
So all you have to do is run that gditray.exe application in the background and it works? Or is there something I'm missing?

Yes, that's pretty much it.

This was posted by someone on another forum, which I found yesterday. This is much better as it's better configured than downloading the version on that site, and the titlebar fonts don't screw up, for example.

http://rapidshare.com/files/119658343/GDI__.zip.html

Here is a preview (I took this earlier when discussing this on IRC)

gdibs9.png

Proficient

Cadium

Posted
Posted
Yes, that's pretty much it.

This was posted by someone on another forum, which I found yesterday. This is much better as it's better configured than downloading the version on that site, and the titlebar fonts don't screw up, for example.

http://rapidshare.com/files/119658343/GDI__.zip.html

Here is a preview (I took this earlier when discussing this on IRC)

gdibs9.png

That looks really good, I think I will have to install this on my Windows-based PCs. :)

Grand Master

Lee G. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

By the way, this may come in handy. It's an English translation of the Japanese Readme. It gives instructions on how you can edit the .ini file to change the settings of the program. For example, you can change the font weight, or you can exclude applications from have GDI++ applied to them (some will need to be excluded due to incompatibility), or you can set GDI++ to run on one program (most likely the browser).

Veteran

Wakers

Posted
Posted

I downloaded the rapid share link, and while the fonts look fantastic within the browser, they look very "blotty" in the titlebars, tabs, in the start menu and on right click menu's everywhere within explorer. Are there some settings I should tweak to avoid this?

Veteran

Wakers

Posted
Posted

I've tried all sorts of settings - I just can't get the fonts to look smooth within Explorer or any titlebars within applications, which is a shame. Maybe it doesn't work great with widescreen resolutions? although I can't see why that's the case.

I'll keep for future use though in case it gets any better :)

Grand Master

Lee G. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
I've tried all sorts of settings - I just can't get the fonts to look smooth within Explorer or any titlebars within applications, which is a shame. Maybe it doesn't work great with widescreen resolutions? although I can't see why that's the case.

I'll keep for future use though in case it gets any better :)

You should use 

[ExcludeModule]
explorer.exe

The font smoothing won't be applied to Explorer then.

Mentor

DaViD_BRaNDoN

Posted
Posted
Yes, that's pretty much it.

This was posted by someone on another forum, which I found yesterday. This is much better as it's better configured than downloading the version on that site, and the titlebar fonts don't screw up, for example.

http://rapidshare.com/files/119658343/GDI__.zip.html

Here is a preview (I took this earlier when discussing this on IRC)

gdibs9.png

Wow... The font smoothing looks great!

Mentor

sciguy007

Posted
Posted

so i've been tinkering around with gdi++ and while it works, almost every application i open throws an error of needing msvcr80.dll even though the program opens fine after i click ok. if i stick msvcr80.dll in the system32 directory, then i get a new error saying "Runtime Error R6034 An application has made an attempt to load the C Runtime library incorrectly. Please contact the application support team for more information." has anyone else experienced that when trying to get gdi++ working?

Rookie

belutlah

Posted
  • Author
Posted

>> Dr Broccoli, lcg

Thanks, just what I wanted!

Now I realized what the other Nera in that 2ch thread was talking about. I didn't know he/she/it was answering my question, because I assumed everyone would use the >> pointer when replying.

Well, now, I feel lucky again that I've learnt moonspeak.

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