Comments on: ClearType rendering forthcoming for Safari on Windows?

By: xavix

xavix — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:58:56 +0000

There´s a way to use quartz rendering in Safari 4 for windows?

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:35:37 +0000

Cleartype gives me a headache.

By: KKT

KKT — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:39:13 +0000

We did quite a bit of testing around this, and found one of the biggest issues with the WebKit rendering on the PC was the gamma settings. The Mac assumes certain gamma settings that just aren’t the same on the windows side. This heavily influences the mid-toned pixels, making them appear heavier under windows than on the Mac.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:40:24 +0000

“Cleartype which is intelligent enough to switch off anti aliasing below a certain size.”

Cleartype still attempts to AA very small (like, 3 pixel high) fonts, add it’s hinting in and you end up with a pixelated, black mess.

By: Dean

Dean — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:33:23 +0000

This either does not work or was already included in the latest 2 builds of Safari.

Either way Safari’s text rendering is terrible! I couldn’t even read this page in Safari because it is so blurry.

By: Axel

Axel — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:27:08 +0000

>its text rendering is head-and-shoulders above anything else on Windows – it just looks so damn good

On Windows *2000*, maybe. But W2K is an 8-years old OS and does not have ClearType to begin with. On XP the story would be different, and yet again with Vista and WPF.

By: Gaurbrekt

Gaurbrekt — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:39:41 +0000

While I agree that larger text sizes look much nicer with the CoreGraphics renderer I have had a lot of trouble with it when it comes really small text sizes (xx-small), especially on coloured backgrounds. Yes, you DO need them sometimes!

Here Safari is incapable of matching the readability of Cleartype which is intelligent enough to switch off anti aliasing below a certain size. Sure, it means text bodies look slightly different than the font designer intended and that it doesn’t match what it would look like on paper but surely readibility is more important than either of these concerns. Besides:

A webpage is not a printed document
A webpage is not a printed document
A webpage is not a printed document
A webpage is not a printed document
A webpage is not a printed document
A webpage is not a printed document

(repeat until it sticks)

By: Dan Cobbledick

Dan Cobbledick — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:34:24 +0000

I’m using Windows Safari 3.0.3 (3.0.4 doesn’t work on Win2k for me) despite the fact it’s not a particularly great browser compared to Opera (for one) for the simple reason that its text rendering is head-and-shoulders above anything else on Windows – it just looks so damn good!

By: Ben Darlow

Ben Darlow — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:05:22 +0000

@Paul Walker: I understand that the horizontal resolution is tripled in the same width, but the way MS’ algorithm approaches this has undesirable effects. Compare the outline of the O letterform, and see how many horizontal steps there are compared to vertical. Now zoom into a similar sized piece of text with WebKit doing the rendering (or Gecko under OS X). Notice the difference? Under OS X the anti-aliasing still occupies more than one screen element. In Cleartype, the algorithm tries to squeeze all that information into a single screen element and consequently the horizontal resolution looks a lot lower than the vertical. Again, compare non-cleartype Windows anti-aliasing to cleartype and you’ll see that cleartype looks less anti-aliased than its older sibling (yes, even on TFT displays).

Ultimately though, I don’t see this decision to add cleartype rendering to Safari/Win as a technical decision, but a psychological one. Anti-aliasing on Windows and OS X have been very different for a long time, and so naturally those who’ve been using Windows all this time will be more familiar with the Windows method.

By: Paul Walker

Paul Walker — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:53:38 +0000

@Ben Darlow – That webpage extremely underestimates the effect of sub-pixel smoothing, and also, you seem to have gotten it’s effect backwards. Subpixel smoothing, used in Cleartype and in OS X – TRIPES the horizontal resolution of type. Unfortunaely, it also makes it look terrible when scaled.
His complaints stem from a misunderstanding of how sub-pixel smoothing works. That 1 yellow pixel actually is three subpixel elements – red, green, and blue. On his screen the pixels are in the order RGB – so the blue is darkest (as it’s nearer to the edge of the letter) the green is in between, and the red is lightest. This happens to make yellow when you blow it up. The number of steps between black and white are the same. They’re just in a smaller area