[WildBill]

Yup, it's just for LCD's. It's great for laptops, but what made me really push hard on it was when I got rid of my CRT and bought an LCD monitor (a BIG one!)

You're right, the options panel doesn't do anything yet, it's there in case I need to add options. It's been a really low priority, and since no one has suggested any options, I've left it alone.

For some reason Courier doesn't like being scaled to 3x horizontally and it doesn't render properly. I suspect it's a bug in how Windows handles font hinting or rendering. One possible solution would be to scale Courier differently, for instance scale 3x in both directions and scale down vertically, though this would likely add a lot of blur to it -- still, it's better than missing characters! I haven't tried it but will probably have to at some point. I wish I had a Delphi port of FreeType -- that would solve a lot of problems, but it's so much code to port that I haven't attempted it.

[WildBill]

I've decided to take a whack at the next version and I have version 0.2.3 treating Courier differently so that it doesn't drop any characters. It scales the entire font up proportionally and then condenses it back down. The downside is that it introduces some blur into the font. For now I'm only doing it with Courier New. I might limit it further to specific point sizes, but first I need to build in a way to save settings (maybe into the registry?) The Configure... popup might come in handy after all...

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.2.3 and edited the top post. This should alleviate problems with Courier New.

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.2.4 and edited the top post.

[WildBill]

I ran into a situation where I needed SmoothText to be as fast as possible, so I put a lot of effort into optimization. I sped up the existing code base, added support for using MMX if possible, and added support for using SSE2 if possible (so if you have a Pentium 4, for instance, it will use the SSE code, and if you have something earlier it will use MMX code if it can). It's MUCH faster now and I can honestly recommend it for general use. I can still see areas for improvement, but I'm VERY happy with how it's turned out.

[WildBill]

LOL, just when I thought I couldn't make it any faster, I made it just a little bit more efficient. As usual, I've edited the top post with a description and updated download link to version 0.2.6.

It also looks like disabled text in Explorer toolbars is fixed now, and the MS Word left-margin ruler. I'm not entirely sure what I did to fix it, but I suspect it's that the SSE2 and MMX code isn't forcing a 0FFh alpha value anymore but is simply using what was already there.

This post has been edited by WildBill: 08 October 2008 - 07:20 PM

[smayer97]

Does now work with MS Office XP (Word 2002). The entire documents get messed up. No Font displays correctly at all.

Also, though works well with Netscape 9, slows down scrolling significantly.

(using MS Windows 2000 Pro on IBM Thinkpad T23 - 1.2 GHz with 1GB RAM).

[WildBill]

Hmm. I only have Office 2000. Can you post a small screenshot so I can see what's going on? Also, what kind of CPU do you have? That would help me narrow it down a bit so I know whether to look at the MMX, SSE2, etc. code.

This post has been edited by WildBill: 09 October 2008 - 08:04 PM

[smayer97]

I'd like to post a screen shot but I cannot figure out how to get it below 200MB size.

Let me know another way to get you the screenshots

System Info:
System Information report written at: 10/10/2008 12:09:44 PM
[System Summary]

Item Value
OS Name Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Version 5.0.2195 Service Pack 4 Build 2195
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name MAYER-IBM-T23
System Manufacturer IBM
System Model 26473U5
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 11 Stepping 1 GenuineIntel ~1198 Mhz
BIOS Version Ver 1.00PARTTBL
Windows Directory C:\WINNT
System Directory C:\WINNT\system32
Boot Device \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
Locale United States
User Name MAYER-IBM-T23\SMAYER
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 1,047,536 KB
Available Physical Memory 678,304 KB
Total Virtual Memory 2,780,192 KB
Available Virtual Memory 2,109,304 KB
Page File Space 1,732,656 KB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

[smayer97]

Noticed a couple more problems:

1. Cursor lags text being typed as it gets further to right in a text box like the one I'm typing this message in. Also the text kind of disappears "into" the cursor (and I do not actually see the text being typed the further to the right I goe, i.e. text to the right of the cursor does not show up.at all but it is thereif if I try to edit it.
2. Also sometimes crashes if I try to scroll Netscape with my built-in Trackpoinnt

This post has been edited by smayer97: 10 October 2008 - 10:28 AM

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.2.7 and edited the top post. Smayer97: it looks like you have a Pentium III, which would include SSE support. I've made some changes to the SSE code that might help. It's hard for me to tell without a screenshot (maybe exporting it as .PNG would cut the size down for you), but I've tested it on a 1.2GHz Pentium-III-Mobile laptop and it works.

This post has been edited by WildBill: 10 October 2008 - 11:50 PM

[WildBill]

Another day, another update. Posted version 0.2.8 today and edited the top post. This seems to fix a lot of problems that crop up where the vertical height of a font is way off (usually way too large).

[WildBill]

New update posted: 0.2.9 (see top post for the download link). This should fix problems with Office XP and Office 2003.

[WildBill]

Uploaded SmoothText 0.3.0 (see top post). This has some fixes and nice new features.

[WildBill]

I saw some weirdness where Firefox 3.0 was crashing on loading, and I narrowed it down to the code that reads the registry settings. I made a minor change to the code to try to protect it from any problems and uploaded version 0.3.1. See the top post for the download link...

[WildBill]

Posted version 0.3.2 and edited the top post with the new download link. This fixes a visual bug where text would be chopped if you were in Windows Explorer and were scrolling the window while in Thumbnail View.

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.3.3 and edited the top post again. This version has some nice fixes and an important new feature.

[WildBill]

Found a speed problem in 0.3.3 and had to make a small change. Sorry for the rapid version change (minutes), but decided that this had to be fixed immediately. See the top post for version 0.3.4.

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.3.5 and edited the top post. This version runs quite a lot faster.

[WildBill]

Uploaded version 0.3.6 and edited the top post. This should fix some speed issues.