tkOSX, was Re: [PD] how to set variable types

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

I am routing for you!  It would be nice to have a native Pd.app with a 
reasonably efficient GUI...

.hc

On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, james tittle wrote:

> On Jul 30, 2006, at 7:51 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
>> Speaking of which, I think that Pd looks worse on OSX than on Linux, mainly 
>> due to anti-aliasing. All boxes look blurry and dim. This is because the 
>> anti-aliasing is done without any kerning. Kerning is the rounding of pixel 
>> positions done to minimize the amount of anti-aliasing required. This is 
>> because raw anti-aliasing always gives that blurry effect that tires the 
>> eye.
>
> ...it really depends on what tcl/tk version you are using...I believe the 
> current 8.4.13 is now fully using ATSUI font rendering, which should solve 
> the anti-aliasing/kerning problems...but, it is a work in progress, and there 
> aren't alot of eyeballs offering code...
>
> ...also wanted to point out that the point size/level at which anti-aliasing 
> kicks in can be set in u_main.tk/pd.tk, around line 52:
>
>    # set minimum line size for anti-aliasing.  If set to 1 or 0, then every
>    # line will be anti-aliased.  While this makes connections and circles in
>    # [bng] and such look really good, it makes boxes and messages look out 
> of
>    # focus.  Setting this to 2 makes it so the thick audio rate connections
>    # are anti-aliased.  <hans at at.or.at> 2005-06-09
>    set tk::mac::CGAntialiasLimit 2
>
> ...feel free to adjust to your preference...
>
>> About the speed: Tcl/Tk on OSX includes a fake X11 library which is a 
>> translation layer so that Tk doesn't have to be rewritten for OSX. That 
>> layer shouldn't take much CPU in theory, but I don't know how it's been 
>> implemented. May someone who cares about OSX figure out why that X11/OSX 
>> layer sucks. This problem is distinct from the superfluous canvas redrawing 
>> that happens on all platforms, but the two problems cumulate to create some 
>> kind of disaster.
>
> ...true, tk is emulating X11 calls on osx:  unfortunately it was originally 
> done in QuickDraw, which was fine for the time, but really started to fall to 
> the side around 10.3, when Coregraphics/ATSUI/Quartz/whatever rendering 
> became "preferred"...It should be well known that most of the canvas drawing 
> in pd (lines, boxes, text) has been converted to the newer API's, but there 
> is still a hangup in that we are now dealing with a tri/quad buffered drawing 
> system!  Back in the day, one of Tk's innovations was double-buffered 
> drawing, which gave a smooth user experience that was rare for the 
> time...however, now we still have that behaviour, but also have in OSX's aqua 
> the entire window system being automatically double buffered, so in effect we 
> draw way too much!  Awhile ago I started to rip out the offscreen buffering 
> in Tk so that everything was just drawn directly to  the window manager, but 
> it was put on hold until the ATSUI code was more finalized...
>
> ...luckily, we seem to be at a spot for another try, so maybe I can find some 
> time again...?
>
> jamie
>
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 	zen
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