Enola

I just can't get myself to use this thing.

I feel a force pulling me toward the [x] button to close Max5.

I cannot stand the program for more than 10 minutes.

The pathetic text rendering quality causes my astigmatism to act up. I keep trying to focus on the text and I simply can't feel happy, comfortable, or make any intimate connection with the 5th max.

After any extended use, I get a headache.

Juce is written by one man, and his text-rendering routines are nowhere near the likes of MSFT, Apple, or Trolltech's code.

Likely nothing can be done. This is the sort of problem that doesn't get corrected, and follows a toolkit around for years.

Cycling made a disastrous mistake by going with Juce. We're screwed.

Juce's vector performance is near to 10 times slower than Qt.

I am very sad, but you won't be getting my dollars.

I fail to see how you could even dare to ship something so unreadable at any reasonable font size.

I just can't get myself to use this thing.
I've tried.
I feel a force pulling me toward the [x] button to close Max5.
I cannot stand the program for more than 10 minutes.
Max5 is unusable.

It's god damned unreadable.
The pathetic text rendering quality causes my astigmatism to act up. I keep trying to focus on the text and I simply can't feel happy, comfortable, or make any intimate connection with the 5th max.

Because of JUCE.
Juce is written by one man, and his text-rendering routines are nowhere near the likes of MSFT, Apple, or Trolltech's code.

max5-physical-pain

I have quite bad astigmatism and I honestly have not had a problem with it... and this is on a 13" laptop screen

"Unusable for me personally" would probably be what you meant to say

"I'm old and can't read a computer screen" is what I read. But then again, the internet is for whining.

Cycling making a fake post to unspook people.

bullshit,
stepfrequencer == cycling74
A guy with 1 post?

You can zoom in and out anytime you want, and change the font size to "super big public library computer" size if you want.

"and change the font size to "super big public library computer" size if you want."

That's exactly what Max5 requires, and I hate it.

Not Max5, super old fart public library computer edition.

You make my point for me.
That's exactly what Max5 requires, and I hate it.

I like small text.
Not Max5, super old fart public library computer edition.
Max isn't a tonka toy.


Sorry Max5 did not work out for you.
Good luck with the rest of your life.

> The pathetic text rendering quality causes my astigmatism to act up. I

> keep trying to focus on the text and I simply can't feel happy,

> comfortable, or make any intimate connection with the 5th max.

Try changing the font used to Verdana or another font meant for online 

reading, and increase font size to 10 or larger. Makes a huge difference 

compared to e.g. Geneva nine pt at the Mac.

> It's god damned unreadable.
 > The pathetic text rendering quality causes my astigmatism to act up. I
 > keep trying to focus on the text and I simply can't feel happy,
 > comfortable, or make any intimate connection with the 5th max.

Try changing the font used to Verdana or another font meant for online 
reading, and increase font size to 10 or larger. Makes a huge difference 
compared to e.g. Geneva nine pt at the Mac.

Okay, here's the vastly readable Verdana 10.

Take a look at the attachment.
It's absolutely horrendous.

The complaint refers to something called sub-pixel anti-aliasing. If you blow up some text from a typical Mac or Windows application you will see there are actually blue and brown dots mixed in with the gray and black dots. By contrast, Max 5 uses only gray-scale dots. We have been aware of the difference for a long time and plan to incorporate sub-pixel font rendering in the future. However, we felt the text quality was acceptable for our first release, particularly since it was possible to zoom in or switch to a font that might be easier on the eyes. I find that this is the sort of thing that can drive you crazy if you focus on it too much. Even sub-pixel rendered fonts look fuzzy if you really stare at them. For what it's worth, sub-pixel font rendering is a technology completely tied to LCD screens, so if you try to look at sub-pixel rendered text on, say, a plasma display, it looks horrible. That is not to say it isn't a very cool invention.

I don't expect I can say anything to make Mr. Enola feel better, since he seems invested in his pain, but his characterization of our relationship to JUCE is completely inaccurate. It is not a fixed and closed library that we can't improve. We use the JUCE source code but we are constantly modifying it, and we've already made numerous changes to the font component of the library. So far, we've focused our attention on modifications for better Unicode support and making sure the font size of imported patches was as accurate as possible.

Quote: Enola wrote on Tue, 13 May 2008 08:27

----------------------------------------------------

I can't believe that someone trolling, with four posts to their name, is accusing someone of being a shill because they only have one post.

Quote: Enola wrote on Tue, 13 May 2008 08:27
----------------------------------------------------
> bullshit,
> stepfrequencer == cycling74
> A guy with 1 post?
----------------------------------------------------

I understand your logical response, and it does sound nice and make sense, but how can any kind of logic or reason matter when you simply take a look at the .PNG file I posted?

Seriously, do you guys see the picture? How could I be the only one to notice such a severe problem?

I don't care what the technology is behind it, or how it's being implemented. I'm just a customer with money, and it's the end-result that counts. The end result is vastly inferior to the other methods you've mentioned.

I have a 12-inch ibook and I have no problems reading any font or anything. If anything, sometimes the font is too thin on my interface objects, but then I just up them to size 12 and bold them.

so I did not downloaded and tried the max 5 yet, but when i first saw 

it (on a friend's computer) my first reaction was "it's really blurry 

since years I spend hours, daily, on max, and most if not all my 

concerts are played with max, or include max (Yes, I am not the only 

one in this case) - and we should now do it staring at a blurry 

I will soon try max5 but have teh feeling the blurry aspect will be 

much harder to overcome than the round corners (!!!!)

>
>Come on.
>It's blurry as a blind bat.
>

so I did not downloaded and tried the max 5 yet, but when i first saw 
it (on a friend's computer) my first reaction was "it's really blurry 
!!!"

since years I spend hours, daily, on max, and most if not all my 
concerts are played with max, or include max (Yes, I am not the only 
one in this case) - and we should now do it staring at a blurry 
screen?

I will soon try max5 but have teh feeling the blurry aspect will be 
much harder to overcome than the round corners (!!!!)

kasper
-- 
  Kasper T. Toeplitz
noise, composition, bass, computer
http://www.sleazeArt.com

If you a pixel magnifier (such as the selection tool in Snapz Pro) you can see that there are other applications that do not use sub-pixel font rendering. I just happened to be looking at another such application just now, called Live. You may have heard of it. The fonts in Live look pretty much the same as they do in Max. I also noticed that below a certain font size, all fonts in Live are bold. If that would help, it is easily configured as a preference in Max.

I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.

- Proper text rendering is consistent. The L's in Microsoft 'lll' are antialiased identically. JUCE L's are blowing in the wind.

- The emphasis of the center point of JUCE L's is not consistent; JUCE's first 'l' is closer to the b, while the other two l's are further right-centered on a subpixel level.

- The bridge of MS 'e' is not destroyed. JUCE destroys the e and turns it into gray mud. I can't even make out the bridge, just mush.

- Microsoft 'l's are indeed not a single pixel, and use padding on each side like JUCE. However, MS does it crisply and cleanly at any size.

- JUCE has garbage pixels underneath the e's, b's, p's, and d's. JUCE's method doesn't take into consideration that in a font context, certain curve antialiasing creates noise. It just dumbly renders it as if it were graphics.

I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.
Note the following:

- Proper text rendering is consistent. The L's in Microsoft 'lll' are antialiased identically. JUCE L's are blowing in the wind.
- The emphasis of the center point of JUCE L's is not consistent; JUCE's first 'l' is closer to the b, while the other two l's are further right-centered on a subpixel level.
- The bridge of MS 'e' is not destroyed. JUCE destroys the e and turns it into gray mud. I can't even make out the bridge, just mush.
- Microsoft 'l's are indeed not a single pixel, and use padding on each side like JUCE. However, MS does it crisply and cleanly at any size.
- JUCE has garbage pixels underneath the e's, b's, p's, and d's. JUCE's method doesn't take into consideration that in a font context, certain curve antialiasing creates noise. It just dumbly renders it as if it were graphics.

Thanks for your thorough investigation of this issue. As David mentioned, we know there is some room for improvement in our font-rendering methods, but it will take a non-trivial amount of development and research to make these improvements. We appreciate all the feedback everyone has given on Max 5, and your patience while we continue to perfect it.

Hi Enola,
Thanks for your thorough investigation of this issue.  As David mentioned, we know there is some room for improvement in our font-rendering methods, but it will take a non-trivial amount of development and research to make these improvements.  We appreciate all the feedback everyone has given on Max 5, and your patience while we continue to perfect it.

> Cycling making a fake post to unspook people.

Since you just registered today, perhaps you're unaware, but we at 

Cycling most certainly do NOT "sock puppet".

It's ironic -- you imply that we're somehow engaging in damage control 

to keep people from getting "spooked" by your post, but I can't see 

anyone reading your series of posts (especially when they are the only 

contributions you've made to our discussions) and thinking that you have 

a legitimate point. I'm not saying there isn't validity to what you 

claim (nor am I saying there is, that's not really my dept.) but I can 

hardly think of a less effective way to get your point across.

I mean, feel free to express yourself in any way you see fit but if you 

actually want results, insults and whining don't strike me as 

particularly effective. You're basically coming off as a bomb-throwing 

Enola wrote:
> bullshit,
> stepfrequencer == cycling74
> A guy with 1 post?
>
> Cycling making a fake post to unspook people.

Since you just registered today, perhaps you're unaware, but we at 
Cycling most certainly do NOT "sock puppet".

It's ironic -- you imply that we're somehow engaging in damage control 
to keep people from getting "spooked" by your post, but I can't see 
anyone reading your series of posts (especially when they are the only 
contributions you've made to our discussions) and thinking that you have 
a legitimate point. I'm not saying there isn't validity to what you 
claim (nor am I saying there is, that's not really my dept.) but I can 
hardly think of a less effective way to get your point across.

I mean, feel free to express yourself in any way you see fit but if you 
actually want results, insults and whining don't strike me as 
particularly effective. You're basically coming off as a bomb-throwing 
troll.

> I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.

Enola wrote:
> I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.
> Note the following:

In this marking time for British academics, I see many different sort 

of paranoia comming from students, but thinking Cycling has such 

time, especially with the hyperactivity of the forums since the 

release of v5, is just very, very funny...

>> bullshit,
>> stepfrequencer == cycling74

In this marking time for British academics, I see many different sort  
of paranoia comming from students, but thinking Cycling has such   
time, especially with the hyperactivity of the forums since the  
release of v5, is just very, very funny...

whatever you do with the font rendering, please make any changes optional because the ms style multi-coloured sub-pixel rendering actually gives me headaches.

of course in windows you can turn off the 'cleartype' system. also its fortunate that i spend most of the day on linux which has a wealth of font rendering options and looks great.

also it would be nice if there was an option to have no anti-aliasing and always make fonts pixel aligned like you can do in flash.

I guess I'm less concerned about suboptimal antialasing that you, but I 

Reading the outline by David Z. on some of the core decisions behind the 

development of Max5, it's fairly obvious that Juce is here to stay for 

https://cycling74.com/story/2007/9/28/105551/882

So if you want to pick the fights you can win, I would suggest that you 

contact the developer of Juce directly, and point these issues out to 

him. If that leads to improved antialiasing in Juce, it will probably 

eventually make its way into Max as well.

> - Proper text rendering is consistent. The L's in Microsoft 'lll' are antialiased identically. JUCE L's are blowing in the wind.

> - The emphasis of the center point of JUCE L's is not consistent; JUCE's first 'l' is closer to the b, while the other two l's are further right-centered on a subpixel level.

> - The bridge of MS 'e' is not destroyed. JUCE destroys the e and turns it into gray mud. I can't even make out the bridge, just mush.

> - Microsoft 'l's are indeed not a single pixel, and use padding on each side like JUCE. However, MS does it crisply and cleanly at any size.

> - JUCE has garbage pixels underneath the e's, b's, p's, and d's. JUCE's method doesn't take into consideration that in a font context, certain curve antialiasing creates noise. It just dumbly renders it as if it were graphics.

I guess I'm less concerned about suboptimal antialasing that you, but I 
see that you have a point.

Reading the outline by David Z. on some of the core decisions behind the 
development of Max5, it's fairly obvious that Juce is here to stay for 
quite a while:

So if you want to pick the fights you can win, I would suggest that you 
contact the developer of Juce directly, and point these issues out to 
him. If that leads to improved antialiasing in Juce, it will probably 
eventually make its way into Max as well.

Enola wrote:
> I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.
> Note the following:
>
> - Proper text rendering is consistent. The L's in Microsoft 'lll' are antialiased identically. JUCE L's are blowing in the wind.
> - The emphasis of the center point of JUCE L's is not consistent; JUCE's first 'l' is closer to the b, while the other two l's are further right-centered on a subpixel level.
> - The bridge of MS 'e' is not destroyed. JUCE destroys the e and turns it into gray mud. I can't even make out the bridge, just mush.
> - Microsoft 'l's are indeed not a single pixel, and use padding on each side like JUCE. However, MS does it crisply and cleanly at any size.
> - JUCE has garbage pixels underneath the e's, b's, p's, and d's. JUCE's method doesn't take into consideration that in a font context, certain curve antialiasing creates noise. It just dumbly renders it as if it were graphics.
>
> - Enola


I just want the antialiasing off completely, or below a certain level. At a certain point it "absorbs" the text. This is horrendous if you try to use any color combination except black on white. So, what I'm left with is going through all my old patches and killing my screen real estate by using a larger font... or using Verdana with black text on a white background, and losing any color coding I was attempting to use for organizational purposes. Admittedly, things are a lot less "shocking" if you just start patching using the default setup. However, after deciding to build a patch from scratch, instead of converting my old version, I found that a patch that had taken up about a quarter of the screen now was gobbling up the entire page. I'm enthused by the advantages of truly scaleable UI objects that would allow me to streamline my interface and theoretically make it smaller, but this antialiasing of text issue is causing trouble. What I'm considering is just using the nice ability to output screen captures from max and just building my individual components as pictures so the fonts can be small and crisp. Perhaps a "crisp text" comment UI object is something that can be created in the future. Until then I'll be trying various methods of cheating to get the same effect, though most likely I'll just be squinting a lot at my old patches.

I just want the antialiasing off completely, or below a certain level.  At a certain point it "absorbs" the text.  This is horrendous if you try to use any color combination except black on white.  So, what I'm left with is going through all my old patches and killing my screen real estate by using a larger font... or using Verdana with black text on a white background, and losing any color coding I was attempting to use for organizational purposes.  Admittedly, things are a lot less "shocking" if you just start patching using the default setup.  However, after deciding to build a patch from scratch, instead of converting my old version, I found that a patch that had taken up about a quarter of the screen now was gobbling up the entire page.  I'm enthused by the advantages of truly scaleable UI objects that would allow me to streamline my interface and theoretically make it smaller, but this antialiasing of text issue is causing trouble.  What I'm considering is just using the nice ability to output screen captures from max and just building my individual components as pictures so the fonts can be small and crisp.  Perhaps a "crisp text" comment UI object is something that can be created in the future.  Until then I'll be trying various methods of cheating to get the same effect, though most likely I'll just be squinting a lot at my old patches.


I noticed this before, and my first reaction was to increase font size to 12 which makes everything readable again. But that meant my patches would have to be much smaller than before since less stuff fits on the screen. So i tried Verdana Bold, size 9. I think it's not that bad actually. The blackness makes the contrast much better.

Isn't it strange in Enola's example, Microsoft's text is bigger than Juce's? Should be same size for a fair comparison imo.

Anyway, although it'll be another while before we will be upgrading to Max5 (lots of jsui stuff here), it's interesting to see what people's opinion on this is and if anything can or should be done...

Quote: Enola wrote on Tue, 13 May 2008 09:27

Yes, I can read it fine on my 13" macbook

Quote: Enola wrote on Tue, 13 May 2008 09:27
----------------------------------------------------
> bullshit,
> stepfrequencer == cycling74
> A guy with 1 post?
>
> Cycling making a fake post to unspook people.
>
> Suuuuure, readable on your 13 inch.
>
> Come on.
> It's blurry as a blind bat.
>
> Get real
----------------------------------------------------

Yes, I can read it fine on my 13" macbook


> If that would help, it is easily configured as a preference in Max.

I agree completely, but I'd like to see one additional preference for 

As I also agree to Enola, that a 9 pt anything is unreadable for my 

eyes, the first action necessary to any imported file is, to select all 

The import function does listen to my font preference, but not to the 

size. Which does have some advantages for certain old patches, but its a 

I want any non specific size (usually 9 pt for Max 4 files) to change to 

my preference size. could be a preference "adjust default font size on 

Or maybe a special tab "import" which would also allow to set the size 

of imported standard objects to a specific default. I have to manually 

select all square objects and resize them. (all inlets/outlets, toggles, 

bangs f.e.) If that could be automated the time till I have the complete 

Max 5 compatible St.ools would be much shorter....

When looking at Verdana which is supposed to be made for screens, I 

don't understand why the distance between letters isn't an integer pixel 

distance. The result is that the same letter looks different, as in the 

example of Enola. Though I do not consider 10 pt as usable. But on 12 pt 

the blurriness of identical letters is still different.

Enola said, that with qt it would look better. I just wonder how this 

looks like, as a font is a system wide entity, and should look the same 

David Zicarelli schrieb:
> If that would help, it is easily configured as a preference in Max.

I agree completely, but I'd like to see one additional preference for 
importing Max 4 files:
As I also agree to Enola, that a 9 pt anything is unreadable for my 
eyes, the first action necessary to any imported file is, to select all 
and push the font size to 11 minimum.
The import function does listen to my font preference, but not to the 
size. Which does have some advantages for certain old patches, but its a 
minority in my case...
I want any non specific size (usually 9 pt for Max 4 files) to change to 
my preference size. could be a preference "adjust default font size on 
import" or something like that...
Or maybe a special tab "import" which would also allow to set the size 
of imported standard objects to a specific default. I have to manually 
select all square objects and resize them. (all inlets/outlets, toggles, 
bangs f.e.) If that could be automated the time till I have the complete 
Max 5 compatible St.ools would be much shorter....

When looking at Verdana which is supposed to be made for screens, I 
don't understand why the distance between letters isn't an integer pixel 
distance. The result is that the same letter looks different, as in the 
example of Enola. Though I do not consider 10 pt as usable. But on 12 pt 
the blurriness of identical letters is still different.
Enola said, that with qt it would look better. I just wonder how this 
looks like, as a font is a system wide entity, and should look the same 
in all applications...

-- 
Stefan Tiedje------------x-------
--_____-----------|--------------
--(_|_ ----|-----|-----()-------
-- _|_)----|-----()--------------
----------()--------www.ccmix.com


Thanks for the clear example. I hope you'll find enough ways around your 

pain with bigger fonts till all this will be improved. There is so much 

more valuable stuff in Max 5 compared to Max 4...

I also have to wait for some enhancement in the vst area, but it doesn't 

prevent me of using and working with Max 5...

As even the big mastermind answered in this thread I guess you don't 

assume Stefan == cycling74, a guy with > 4000 posts?

No matter how many posts, your assumption tells more about you, than 

about anything else... (but don't worry, you're more than welcome...)

Even the way cycling is answering posts on this list has been improved a 

lot (though it was way above the standard already in the past). We get 

incredible fast feedback now. This is much appreciated...

Even if we have to learn it will take a while, or that it won't happen, 

I feel that somebody is listening and can easily find my own strategy to 

deal with it... Much less (likely faulty) assumptions necessary...

Enola schrieb:
> I've made a comparison PNG of Verdana 10 between MS and JUCE.

Thanks for the clear example. I hope you'll find enough ways around your 
pain with bigger fonts till all this will be improved. There is so much 
more valuable stuff in Max 5 compared to Max 4...
I also have to wait for some enhancement in the vst area, but it doesn't 
prevent me of using and working with Max 5...

As even the big mastermind answered in this thread I guess you don't 
assume Stefan == cycling74, a guy with > 4000 posts?

No matter how many posts, your assumption tells more about you, than 
about anything else... (but don't worry, you're more than welcome...)

Even the way cycling is answering posts on this list has been improved a 
lot (though it was way above the standard already in the past). We get 
incredible fast feedback now. This is much appreciated...
Even if we have to learn it will take a while, or that it won't happen, 
I feel that somebody is listening and can easily find my own strategy to 
deal with it... Much less (likely faulty) assumptions necessary...

I have been spending a lot of time in Max 3.6 to optimise screen use in many

patches and I would second any improvement that would allow me to find in

Max 5 the same readability on a similar screen space as in Max 3.6.

This momentarily keeps me off Max 5 though I would love to benefit from the

I Haven't seen a Max 5 SDK on the web site. Is it available?

I was wondering if there would be a possibility to include the code of the

graphical objects where readability matters most in terms of user interface

once the patch is finished (comment, num box, float numbox, ubumenu), so

that we could make custom objects as we like them, without any overhead for

the cycling team. I think that it should be possible to remove a lot of

wasted space by drawing the borders closer to the text, allowing bigger font

That coupled with Stephan Tiedje proposal of more importing rules (including

replacement of some GUI objects) would allow us to open Max 3.6 patches

> I just want the antialiasing off completely, or below a certain level. At a

> certain point it "absorbs" the text. This is horrendous if you try to use any

> color combination except black on white. So, what I'm left with is going

> through all my old patches and killing my screen real estate by using a larger

> font... or using Verdana with black text on a white background, and losing any

> color coding I was attempting to use for color coding purposes. Admittedly,

> things are a lot less "shocking" if you just start patching using the default

> setup. However, after deciding to build a patch from scratch, instead of

> converting my old version, I found that a patch that had taken up about a

> quarter of the screen now was gobbling up the entire page. I'm enthused by

> the advantages of truly scaleable UI objects that would allow me to streamline

> my interface and theoretically make it smaller, but this antialiasing of text

> issue is causing trouble. What I'm considering is just using the!

Max5 == Physical Pain