[MacPorts] #31580: MacPorts xfd renders fonts differently (and worse) from OSX xfd

[MacPorts]

#31580: MacPorts xfd renders fonts differently (and worse) from OSX xfd
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 Reporter:  david.osguthorpe@…          |       Owner:  macports-tickets@…                   
     Type:  defect                      |      Status:  new                                  
 Priority:  Normal                      |   Milestone:                                       
Component:  ports                       |     Version:  2.0.3                                
 Keywords:  font render x11             |        Port:  xfd                                  
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 Fonts using Macports X11 sub-system (OSX X11 server) are rendered poorly
 compared to OSX X11 (example port is xfd)

 Attached file shows screen grab for Menlo, but same rendering defects can
 be seen using Times, Courier

 Note the random thickening seen in the capital letters and the thinness of
 the lowercase letters using Macports libraries (version on right) versus
 /usr/X11 libraries (version on left)

 Commands to replicate:
 /opt/local/bin/xfd -fa Menlo
 /usr/X11/bin/xfd -fa Menlo

 OXS Version 10.6.3
 tested with fresh macports 2.0.3 install from dmg (no update/upgrade)

 This is a general font rendering problem - xfd is the simplest port I
 found which displays the difference (the port which led me to this
 originally was GnuCash after changing to 2.0.3 - the font rendering in
 macports 1.8.1 for gnucash was better)

 Adding a system_x11 variant to xfd Portfile to use OSX X11 libraries gives
 same rendering as /usr/X11/bin/xfd (libraries checked with otool -L)

 It does not appear to be the freetype port or fontconfig port - macports
 versions of which can be combined with xfd and /usr/X11/lib to also give
 same rendering as /usr/X11/bin/xfd

 Unfortunately the rest of the X11 system seems to be mutually exclusive
 (segmentation violation and unresolved inheritance errors) if eg try to
 link Xft2 with macports libraries and rest of xfd with /usr/X11/lib
 libraries - it seems the X11 and Xt libraries must come from same group -
 and these are direct dependencies of Xft2, xorg-libXaw and xfd itself

 At the moment the only solution seems to be to resurrect a system_x11
 variant for X11 ports I need for GnuCash

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/31580>
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