Bitmap (otb) font in editor. Cursor misalignment.

[kzorp]

Trying to use uw-ttyp0 bitmap font and the cursor is shown shifted up in relation to the rest of the text.

[SpartanJ]

I'll take a look soon!

[kzorp]

/usr/share/fonts/OTB/uw-ttyp0/UW-Ttyp0-18-Regular.otb: TrueType Font data, 13 tables, 1st "EBDT", 8 names, Microsoft, language 0x409, Copyright (C) 2012-2025 Uwe WaldmannTtyp0 OTBRegularTtyp0 OTB X.Org bitmap size 9x18Ttyp0 OTBVer

Ok, i set "editor font size" for that font to 12px, and cursor after that in "normal" position against the text. My "line spacing" is 4px. But line selection isn't "perfect" (or may be it is that it need to be), as u can see on pic.

Anyway, thank you for an unsurpassed high-speed graphics editor.

[SpartanJ]

Yes, sadly this is the font fault, it's not reporting correctly its ascender + descender, maybe I can add an option to use different data for the cursor line positioning + height, let me think about it.

[SpartanJ]

Can you please share the exact configuration? font + line spacing + font size? I can reproduce a slight mis-alignment but not that bad as the one you're displaying.

[SpartanJ]

@kzorp let me know if you can share this information so I can test a really bad scenario. I've been looking with the two fonts that you shared and the issue is that the font actually renders outside its own line bounds because they give incorrect numbers of its dimensions, which I cannot fix directly, but maybe I can find a hack for those weird cases. Bitmap fonts still look nice to me, so I'm interested in having good support for them.

[kzorp]

Well, i mostly use uw-ttyp0 fonts with 18px size (14 px for UI "Sans-Serif" font. Why UI font is called "sans-serif" in menu is another question). UW-Ttyp0-18-Regular.otb
Line spacing is 3-4 px. Right now with latest nightly ecode, I tried 18px font size of this font and 4px line spacing with next picture:

As you can see, there is no "symmetry", or it is if it planned so.
Thank you.

Also now i tried Greybeard-18px.ttf with the same config, and same cursor's tendency to shift upward.
Also gohufont.otb, 14px font size.
Also spleen-8x16.otb, 16px font size.
Attached those fonts here in zip archive.
fonts.zip

Anyway i just switched to .ttf (PragmataPro 16px), and on bright theme it is usable, even with grayscale anti-aliasing (with slight font hinting). It seems to me that it is no longer possible to achieve something better in terms of 1080p blur on this render.
On dark themes .otb fonts are good too.

Bitmap fonts are great because they don't require anti-aliasing, hinting, etc. and they (for all their ugliness) look clear. It's clear that nowadays it's easier to get the cheapest 4k monitor for $300. But while it's not there, I have to tinker with the settings :D

[SpartanJ]

I thinks I found a solution for the bitmap fonts cursor (and text) positioning.
With the latest commit it should position correctly (at least most of the cases). So check the nightly builds if you're still interested.

[kzorp]

Also, there is a question about other input fields, like search or command palette. They use same font as editor (not UI font, but why. If UI elements and signs have another font size). Again with .otb bitmap font input fields look like this:

Here UI font have smaller size than editor font.

[SpartanJ]

This is mostly an stylistic choice, I prefer monospace fonts in all search inputs. It's true that it does not look good in your use case, let me also think about this, I can probably add yet another options for that.

[SpartanJ]

Added an option to configure this. You can now disable the default behavior at Settings -> Window -> "Use editor font in input fields" (this is enabled by default but not always convenient as you displayed).

[kzorp]

Sorry, I didn't think about the fact that you use proportional fonts in the interface. I think it's all related to bitmap fonts, which normal people haven't been interested in for a long time. Thank you.