mactype VS PowerToys

I'm curious - when you were doing research into the mechanics of hinting options, did you stumble onto any relevant discussion around allowing custom pixel geometries to be defined, to enable hinting on modern OLED / WRBG displays? There's a good thread on the topic here[0], with some people referring to it as 'ClearType 2' on the MS side [1]. On the oss side I know FreeType theoretically supports this[2], but I can't quite figure out how relevant the FreeType backend is to this most recent work.

This is great work btw.

[0]: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/932

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

[2]: https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-lcd_render...

HDMI 2.0 is capable of doing 4k @ 120Hz, but only up to YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit instead of the full YCbCr 4:4:4 10bit (though I'm not sure how close wayland is to 10bit support). It will be fine for gaming, just not for everyday PC use.

FWIW I also didn't realise this until just now. I've been running my desktop at 4k@120hz recently for the buttery smooth neovide, but have been noticing that text rendering, especially syntax-highlighted text, looks awful. I'd seen the same oled panel render text way better in WSL/Windows (both using a custom pixel geometry[0] via Mactype, but also without), so I spent more time than I'm willing to admit to wrapping my head around custom pixel layouts and hinting in freetype. But no, turns out it was this all along.

If you want to see the effect of 420 vs 444 chroma subsampling on text rendering, this writeup[1] has some great test images and is well worth a read. Also, if you happen to have an LG OLED panel, you can get a little debug window that confirms your signal format and refresh rate, by pressing the green button on the remote 7-8 times.

[0]: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/720

Mactype is an application used to improve font rendering on Windows. Install Mactype from here: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/releases/download/v1.2023.5.31/mactype-20230531.zip

Download Mactype. If you download the beta version (warning: it will trip windows defender) you can use one of the QD-OLED profiles, if you download the last stable version (has an installer and will not trip Windows defneder), use a grayscale rendered font like this one. It doesn't work on chromium browsers though so you're gonna have to use Firefox if you want it to be on your browser.

If only. There's a ticket open with Microsoft's PowerToys to improve the anti-aliasing situation:

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

And heres an explanation from the dev of MacType about how DirectWrite can cause different applications to perform text rendering differently from each other:

https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/wiki/DirectWrite-vs-GD...

There's an open source text rendering engine called MacType, it does what you'd think (make it look like Mac). Fonts are a visual delight after that, and it's highly configurable.

Already supported in WPF and DirectWrite. AFAIK DirectWrite by default only uses y-axis at large font sizes. I think MacType enables it system-wide.

I'm using standalone mode (load with tray). It can definitely work with browsers, as mentioned here: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/931. Their github has considerations and workarounds for each, such as this page for Chrome: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/wiki/Google-Chrome

Step 2: Install it from the MacType homepage, it is an open-source project so it seems safe to me. I recommend installing it in "Load with MacTray" -> "Standalone Mode".

Windows PowerToys GitHub Repo

RunFlow is a cross-platform productivity tool which can launch apps and search files and more, that similar to Wox and PowerToys on Windows, and also similar like Alfred and Raycast on macOS. But we have differences with these tools, and we have our own unique new features. Right now, at the below, we will introduce you what features of RunFlow have been implemented in more details. It's an amazing journey, let's start.

I'm curious - when you were doing research into the mechanics of hinting options, did you stumble onto any relevant discussion around allowing custom pixel geometries to be defined, to enable hinting on modern OLED / WRBG displays? There's a good thread on the topic here[0], with some people referring to it as 'ClearType 2' on the MS side [1]. On the oss side I know FreeType theoretically supports this[2], but I can't quite figure out how relevant the FreeType backend is to this most recent work.

This is great work btw.

[0]: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/932

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

[2]: https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-lcd_render...

Thank you all for the informative advices. Here is the summary for those who are in the same situation:

1. Run Windows on Linux by using VM

for the applications you can’t run on Linux

Risks:

* some softwares may attempt to detect VMs and refuse running

* Anything what needs to touch hardware may not work.

2. separate "data" partition on D:

3. back up %APPDATA% and %USERPROFILE%

4. learn chocolatey, scoop or winget

Winget should be good enough

5. Don’t worry about C:\Program Files

6. (Mixed) Use/Don’t use Ansible (or saltstack/salt)

Use:

* Allows you to setup a new machine quickly and consistently when one breaks, get stolen, or lost in an inconvenient time.

* You can get a clean and consistent development environment so that you do not depend on anything accidentally installed on the machine.

* If you define specialised roles, create test playbooks for those individual roles, use these roles to compose more complex playbooks, and offload logic to custom ansible modules that are written in python, you won't wrestle with heavy logic in the template or playbook layer.

* installing software and pulling some configs and scripts down is fine

Don’t use:

* You will spend your days fighting a mix of yaml and Jinja.

* You will end up looking at Python errors because there are no static types.

* errors are cryptic.

7. Use WSL2

You need 32gb of ram, but ram is cheap so choose a good thinkpad

8. Debloat with Recommended Tweaks

Run

irm christitus.com/win | iex

from Administrator Terminal (Powershell)

The link leads to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil/mai...

VirusTotal

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/709834b0e003b6bb546cf16e...

9. Get [PowerToys](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys)

10. Use Devbox for containered environment

https://www.jetpack.io/devbox

11. Dual-Booting Linux and Windows

If you use physically separated drives, you don’t need partitioning.

12. Dedicated Windows machine for class

Yes it sure would be the cleanest solution but I prefer one device for everything

13. keep a git repository with all dot files in it

Many people suggested me to use virtualization, otherwise just let Windows be Windows.

Also, backing up seems to be a good practice.

I’m planning to write a blog about this, if it worked.

Again, thank you all for the helps!

Powertoys Run (https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys) can do this. There are not that many plugins as Alfred but Window Switcher is built-in.

For sharing a mouse/keyboard between Windows PCs, there is Mouse Without Borders. It's included in PowerToys nowadays.

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

- https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

If you’re on Windows, download PowerToys. It’s an app published by Microsoft officially. Then enable Quick Accent in the settings of PowerToys. Now all you have to do is hold down the key you want accented until the switch shows up, then add an accent with your arrow keys.

microsoft/PowerToys: Windows system utilities to maximize productivity (github.com)