Sublime Forum

Dev Build 2079

#1

Dev Build 2079 is out now.

The biggest change is support for sub-pixel text layout on OS X, which resolves an issue where characters were spaced too far apart - it was more noticeable on some fonts than others. This change wasn’t applied to Windows builds because GDI itself doesn’t support sub-pixel positioning. I’m not so sure of the status on Linux - it appears FreeType does support sub-pixel positions, but I wasn’t getting any fractional glyph widths on the fonts that I tried, so it’s a moot point.

Apart from that, 2079 has a small assortment of fixes and tweaks.

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#2

Thanks jon.
Big JavaScript files is way quicker to open now, less than 5 s. for a 130000 line file on my PC.
If I remember well, it was more than 2 min. before.

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#3

I had the performance issue too with compressed (single line) javascript files. For me it is fixed with this Build.

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#4

Sub-pixel text layout looks amazing on OS X. Thanks. :smile:

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#5

Any plans to support DirectWrite on Windows (Windows 7 only and perhaps Vista too)? That does support sub-pixel rendering.

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#6

Dev Build 2080 has been released, fixing a Goto Anything drawing regression on OS X.

While there is a build 2080 for Windows and Linux, it’s not meaningfully different from 2079, and update notifications won’t trigger for these platforms.

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#7

Wasn’t planning to, but there’s nothing stopping it being done.

Just to be explicit: Sublime Text does support sub-pixel rendering on Windows, but sub-pixel positioning is limited by capabilities of the underlying font rasteriser: GDI (the default, which almost every application uses) doesn’t support sub pixel positioning, while DirectWrite does.

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#8

It would add a dash of polish that other text editors on Windows don’t possess. You seem to have have an appreciation for the aesthetic quality of your software (good job too!) and I think DirectWrite would make it sing. Certainly, in Firefox 4 and IE9, text looks much better to my eye, particularly the spacing/kerning and y-axis anti-aliasing. Plus, because of the sub-pixel positioning and improved anti-aliasing, it makes fonts that previously look terrible under GDI look pretty good. I threw together a gallery of screenshots for the Google guys to show how their new fonts browser is let down by Chrome. Here: min.us/mvoZaZS (view originals to actually see the differences).

But perhaps people prefer the more crisp GDI rendering, for coding at least?

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#9

I’ve never noticed that the difference was so vast between Chrome and other browsers! In fact, you’ve managed to make me be slightly ticked off with Chrome now :confused:

If Jon added DirectWrite into Sublime… GAH! I’d love it :smile:

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