Font Rendering Improvements in Silverlight 5

Question

Hi All,

Does anybody have any information about font rendering improvements in Silverlight 5?  I was at MIX this year and was told that there had been additonal font improvements made to Silverlight 4.  I can't see a difference from Silverlight 3 so I am hoping that the improvements didn't make it into the final release.  Fonts rendered with ClearType in Silverlight 4 still look chunky (especially with light text colors and dark backgrounds) and a bit blurry.  I have also noticed that the same character will render perfectly in one line of text and blurry in another.

I know that WPF received a few new text improvements that make it look great.  I am hoping those same improvements are heading our way.

Thanks,

Al

Answer 1

Are you sure you are not thinking about .NET 4 which was improved over .NET 3.5. I couldn't find anything in Silverlight for this. In WPF it's set by using TextOptions.TextRenderingMode, however this doesn't exist in Silverlight. Silverlight did start using ClearType back in v3, but I couldn't find anything about this being changed in SL4.

See this blogpost for some interesting finds on this : http://10rem.net/blog/2010/06/06/wpf-and-silverlight-choose-your-fonts-and-text-rendering-options-wisely It might also explain why your font doesn't look good in Silverlight

Answer 2

Btw you might want to take a look at the TextHintingMode (available since SL3): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.textoptions.texthintingmode(VS.95).aspx

Interesting comparison between SL4 and Flash for this option: http://www.wiredprairie.us/blog/index.php/archives/1016

Answer 3

Hi Morten,Thanks for the reply.  I have read both of those articles.  I am also familiar with TextOptions.I am hoping to hear some news that the next version of Silverlight will contain some additional rendering improvements.  The rendering is certainly getting better but it is still not perfect.  To see what I mean, drop a textbox on control and type a line of uppercase T’s.  Some of the letters will be perfect while others will be blurry.  Take a look at this Adobe site to see how their text appears:   https://xd.adobe.com/#/home.  All of the vertical and horizontal lines are crystal clear.

Al

 

Answer 4

Usually Microsoft doesn't make annoumcements on what they plan on doing, until they have actually done it, so don't expect to get any inside knowledge of their plans with font rendering.

The best thing you can do for now is vote for it: http://dotnet.uservoice.com/forums/4325-silverlight-feature-suggestions/suggestions/311100-render-text-and-graphics-as-good-as-desktop-client?ref=title

Answer 5

I was hoping to hear something positive... oh well.  I still think Silverlight's font rendering is a major weakness for the platform.  I am on Flash sites all of the time and their font rendering is just superior.  Here is another one: http://www.thefwa.com/

Thanks for the UserVoice link.  I have actually voted on both of the text/font issues they have there.

Al

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Not much improvement over SL4. Please see this post: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/silverlightarchieve/thread/2a038aea-0867-44e4-9f50-a5ab62d9153b#bf63cbe3-0ca4-4a1b-b005-b3028b9ce600/1?p=True&t=634714652005860848

Answer 8

FWIW, a bunch of capital T's in a TextBox look fine to me.  Maybe I'm missing something.  Or maybe the situation occurs at very small letters or something.