[Fontconfig] Stripping AA completely from fonts

[Keith Packard]

Around 23 o'clock on Jul 9, Ciprian Popovici wrote:

> So what you're saying, basically, is that all apps that use
> freetype2+fontconfig+xft will not be able to render fonts that look good
> without AA at small sizes?

You need decent fonts -- the freely available 'bitstream vera' typefaces
work quite well down to 8 pixels without anti-aliasing as long as you have
the bytecode interpreter running.  Below that, they don't have delta hints
and so the shapes are pretty indistinct.

> If so, it's quite the opposite of what I was wishing for back when AA
> was still in diapers: no AA for small font sizes and AA for big font
> sizes.

The AA used by FreeType (and hence Xft) performs hinting and then 
anti-aliasing, so you get sharp edges where possible and smooth edges 
otherwise. The results, especially on LCD screens are now preferred by 
many people to non-AA text, especially at small sizes.

-keith