Bring back Cairo font rendering?

[Hlidskjalf]

Firefox 68.0 was the last version to support Cairo font rendering as far as I'm concerned (pardon me if I'm not using the right technical names/terms and so on), and it looked so smooth and gorgeous. I have bad eye sight, and Cairo was the best and most pleasing for my poor vision. I just cannot understand why it was removed in the first place?

Right now I'm forced to sit on such an old version (no security patches!). Would it be technically difficult to bring Cairo back? DirectWrite just doesn't cut it.

Thanks for reading.

[Hlidskjalf]

An example of what it COULD look like, difference wise.

[MCQ]

Try setting these in about:config

gfx.canvas.azure.backends = cairo

gfx.content.azure.backends = cairo

[Hlidskjalf]

Cairo does NOT exist in current Firefox builds at all. So that will not work.

[Jon]

Hey @Hlidskjalf, 

Sharing this with our team. For clarity, are you on Win, MacOS or Linux?

[Hlidskjalf]

@JonI'm on Windows 10 Enterprise (version 22H2). Thank you.

[Hlidskjalf]

@Jon

I'm on Windows. Thank you. I can provide pictures (examples) of what difference Cairo compared to Direct2D/DirectWrite looks like if anyone is interested.

[dholbert]

Pictures/screenshots would absolutely be helpful here -- thanks!

[Hlidskjalf]

@dholbert 

Strange, I did post attach pictures earlier, but they didn't show up. I'll make a secod attempt.

And here are corresponding bug reports on Bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1534152

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1387146

[dholbert]

Gotcha. So your real request here is to get Firefox working nicely on Windows systems with MacType, correct?

(I suspect MacType working/not-working properly is the real thing that's responsible for the differences that you're seeing.)

[Hlidskjalf]

Yes. And no. I do use MacType, sure, and I have been for years, before MacType was MacType it was called gdipp (or GDI++). MacType already works with Direct2D/DirectWrite, but those two just doesn't offer as much font antialiasing and control, as Cairo or GDI did back in the day. So preferably I would want Cairo back rather than Microsoft failing to provide adjustments/elements added to Direct2D/DirectWrite. And no it's not a MacType problem, this is definitely a Firefox problem. All Firefox versions from 1.0 to 68.12.0 worked with MacType. Version 69.0 until the current one is broken, because they don't have Cairo support.

Simply put, getting Cairo back would be the easiest soution we know that would work.

What's up on this forum btw, it takes like a day for my posts to even show up, and the pictures I've sent has all been blocked (they were uploaded to Imgur)?

[Hlidskjalf]

[monoblaine]

I need this desperately. And yes, I'm using MacType. We need GDI font rendering back until Microsoft fixes problems with DirectWrite.

[Hlidskjalf]

@monoblaine

Thank you for chiming in! We need as many voices as we can possibly get for this.

[greatquux]

While I've updated this, something which might help a good deal in the short term is this extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/font-contrast-fix/

[Hlidskjalf]

@greatquux 

Thank you for the suggestion, a nice and neat attempt using a Firefox addon. Is it normal behaviour that you have to click the icon for it to display bolder fonts? It also changed colours (of fonts) on certain websites. However MacType isn't necessarily just "bolder" fonts, you have very high control over anything regarding fonts' smoothness/anti-aliasing, color, sharpness, even shadows and font replacement/substitutes.

I would very much prefer having central control over fonts using MacType (and for that to happen we would need Cairo backend in Firefox. If Mozilla doesn't do it, I'd be very happy to even see a fork of Firefox being able to do this.