[xc68000]

I'm always looking for ways to use my little SGI machines, for fun and sometimes education.  

Recently I started looking at Word Processing options thinking maybe I would do a little writing on my O2 or Octane.  I noticed that nekoware Abiword, which is a pretty nice and simple app, doesn't really look that great in terms of screen fonts, there is no apparent antialiasing to the fonts and it just looks well, bleh.  Same with OpenOffice but even worse, like really either something is horribly wrong with my IRIX install (6.5.30) or that app has the ugliest fonts I've ever seen, literally zero antialiasing and the built in fonts are hideously jagged.  

So then I noticed that there was a port of Abiword from SUGU and I proceeded to get that installed, along with claws-mail (The Sylpheed update).  So I guess these use GTK2 vs GTK1 and GTK2 has Anti-aliased fonts, but they are TOO Anti-aliased and look blurry and ugly as hell.

Anyone else struggling with this?  I will try to put together some screenshots to illustrate my concern if I can figure out a good way of doing that.

[Raion]

Hey x68000,

You have stumbled onto a problem that has been discussed many times before. The issue is with the modern software, not IRIX. GTK2 and up has several issues that make it difficult to use on IRIX:

1. GTK2 and up uses harfbuzz to shape opentype fonts including anti aliasing. Harfbuzz is a C++11/14 project in the versions I've tried to port to IRIX. It appears from my personal understanding of the issue to be the primary hang-up: it has few alternatives, one of which is Rust (aka not viable) and it doesn't use OpenGL for rendering text, so it resorts instead to slow CPU based cycles which are made even slower by a lack of MIPS specific optimizations.

2. GTK2 assumes a 32-bit color X. IRIX uses an 8, 16 or 24-bit color X. This can cause colors to break.

3. GTK2 moved away from using XFT and major X protocols to using XRender to directly render text. This makes it hard to optimize stuff. Either it barely runs satisfactory on even a Tezro, or it looks like ass.

The problem with GTK1 is that it didn't shape text at all, making things "ugly". You'll also notice motif doesn't really make attempts to use modern fonts either.

So how do we fix it? Well, the easiest way would be to build a word processor from scratch. We have a potential thing for this, but my developer in question is currently dealing with a divorce and thus cannot receive payment. I thus told him to not work on it. But we had a paint program we were working on first and foremost so when he's back, that gets priority one.

Barring that, we could up-port the old XFT rendering from pango and other GTK2 components forward. This is not impossible, but it's not straightforward either.

There might be other ways forward, user nuclear or others here may have better ideas. I will admit that I only know this on a high level and thus I don't feel like I can propose every specific avenue possible.

I will request that we refrain from comment on SGUG related stuff. They have not been particularly charitable or kind in recent months towards me so I have no interest in giving them my energy or words.

[vishnu]

It is possible to install True Type fonts on Irix, for example you can do something like this:

https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?threads/...i-x11.671/

[xc68000]

Uploading some screenshots of OpenOffice and AbiWord as examples.  I actually kinda like GTK1 apps because i've been able to tweak them so they blend pretty seamlessly with theme I use on my desktop.  Sylpheed and Pidgeon still work great for me and I have no problem with their fonts.   OpenOffice on the other hand is a trainwreck (I mean just look at it).  It looks liek Abiword 2.2.7 might be doing some sort of antialiasing but its not very good.  Its useable though.  The good news is that the SGI "screen" font for the console is prob one of the most readable non proportional font I've ever used.  Worst case I can write in NEdit and that, but not ideal.

   

   

   

[vishnu]

A small handful of us attempted to port the Maxwell word processor to Irix using MIPSPro, but were thwarted by the prolific use in Maxwell of variadic macros, which MIPSPro sadly doesn't support. Link:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/maxwellwp/

[xc68000]

It is possible to install True Type fonts on Irix, for example you can do something like this:

https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?threads/...i-x11.671/

This actually yielded some decent results so thanks.  Just tried a sans serif font I found and replacing the interface and text font in OpenOffice yielded much nicer results.  I still don't know if I would want to bang out a lot of hours writing on it but it's a major improvement from the screenshot I posted above.  I'm going to be upgrading my display from 1280x1024 to 1600x1200 which should give me a nice bump in PPI and help a little also.

I'm wondering what GUI toolkit OpenOffice uses.  I need to see if I can theme it with my desktop.


   

[Raion]

openoffice.org was Java based, so it might have used Swing?

[vishnu]

openoffice.org was Java based, so it might have used Swing?

Actually Libre Office uses VCL, the "Visual Component Library."

[Raion]

Libreoffice is much newer. The OpenOffice.org we have is ooooold and Java based.

Either way, yes TTF is an option, but the text rendering stuff of GTK2 is a pain. That's the main issue.