B4J Question prism.lcdtext always false [Font Antialiasing]

jmon

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Longtime User
Hello,

I have been trying (for years now) to improve the font anti-aliasing in Javafx. I have read several times that there are 3 ways to change the font anti-aliasing:

CSS (gray / lcd)
B4X: 
.text{
    -fx-font-smoothing-type: gray;
}
Jar Arguments (true/false)
B4X: 
-Dprism.lcdtext=false
Code properties (true/false)
B4X: 
System.setProperty("prism.lcdtext", "false");

The problem is that regardless of what I do, it actually never changes anything when I run the program. I know that it's always false using this function:
B4X: 
Sub getAllSystemProperties
    ' Declare the javaobject and init the class
    Dim JO As JavaObject
    JO.InitializeStatic("java.lang.System")
    ' Get the system properties into one object
    Dim objProperties As Object = JO.RunMethod("getProperties", Null)
    ' Convert the properties object into a list of strings
    Dim s As String = objProperties
    s.SubString(1)
    Dim l As List
    l = Regex.Split(", ", s)
    l.Sort(True)
    ' List the properties
    For i = 0 To l.Size - 1
        Log(l.Get(i))
    Next
End Sub
which returns this:

Now, if I change the " -fx-font-smoothing-type" in CSS and preview my CSS in SceneBuilder, I can see it changing.
To illustrate the problem, please see this example:

Left is SceneBuilder, Right is the jar ran:

We can see that sceneBuilder has the "LCD" antialiasing applied (Which spills some RGB colors), but my JAR is always "GRAY" antialiasing:


Anyone has an idea why I can't change my jar to "LCD" ? I'm using Java 11.

Thanks for your help

(Edit: the screenshots are not very obvious, I think the jpeg compression actually did a smoothing on top)
 
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Erel

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I've tried several things, including this:
B4X: 
Dim text As JavaObject
text.InitializeNewInstance("javafx.scene.text.Text", Null)
text.RunMethod("setFontSmoothingType", Array("LCD"))
text.RunMethod("setText", Array("Testing 123"))
MainForm.RootPane.AddNode(text, 10, 10, 100, 100)
Didn't change anything...
 
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jmon

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Longtime User
To illustrate the result I'm trying to achieve, you can test in JavaFX scene builder.

1) create a text file, name it "style.txt"
2) Go to Javafx scene builder, create a label
3) Go to (Menu) "Preview/Scene Style Sheets/Add Style Sheet" >> Select "Style.txt"
4) Press CTRL+P , that should open the preview window
5) in "style.txt" type this and save the file:
B4X: 
.text  {
    -fx-font-size: 48px;
    -fx-font-smoothing-type: gray;
}

Now, in the preview window, you should see the antialiasing changing.

Try changing between: "gray" / "lcd" modes (save the file each time), I think the difference is quite obvious.

It seems that the executed Jar is locked to "lcd" mode, and I'd like to change it to "lcd"
 
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Erel

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I've checked the source code. The jFX library doesn't set the smoothing method. I guess that JavaFX engine decides based on unknown parameters to use the GRAY method.

BTW, the method is set to LCD as tested with:
B4X: 
    Dim text As JavaObject
   text.InitializeNewInstance("javafx.scene.text.Text", Null)
   text.RunMethod("setFontSmoothingType", Array("LCD"))
   text.RunMethod("setText", Array("Testing 123"))
   text.RunMethod("setFont", Array(fx.CreateFont("", 40, False, False)))
   Log(text.RunMethod("getFontSmoothingType", Null))
   MainForm.RootPane.AddNode(text, 10, 10, 100, 100)
   MainForm.Show
 
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jmon

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Longtime User
Erel said:
BTW, the method is set to LCD as tested with:
Click to expand...
It seems that with TEXT nodes, it the antialiasing is nice and smooth.

Here they say, I just saw it:
Note: LCD mode doesn't apply in numerous cases, such as various compositing modes, where effects are applied and very large glyphs.
Click to expand...

In my case, I think I get the problems on labels and buttons. I'll test with replacing the label with text. Here we can see the default behavior between Label/Text (see the "e" is quite aliased on the label):


Damn, I was hoping for years that they would fix that in Java 11!
 
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jmon

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Longtime User
wow, I missed some update at some point! I didn't even know if was in B4J, maybe I found the culprit:
B4X: 
#Region Project Attributes
    #MainFormWidth: 600
    #MainFormHeight: 600
    #LcdFontSmoothing: True
#End Region
So this #LcdFontSmoothing is overriding other "SetSystemProperty", CSS tricks and command line arguments.

It works if I set #LcdFontSmoothing to True. Now it seems that with big fonts, it's better to set #LcdFontSmoothing=false, but for my project, and small fonts, #LcdFontSmoothing=true works better in my opinion (See the words "button" and "Label").

In my opinion, they should do the opposite, True for small fonts, and false for big fonts.


 
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jmon

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Longtime User
I see the Tooltip for #LcdFontSmoothing is "Disabled by default as small fonts appear less smooth", but I think it's the opposite don't you? Small seem smoother, but big feel too sharp?

edit another example, font is at 13px:


edit: we can see some letters are almost lost when set to false (l, T, Y, F...)
 
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