Font smoothing

[MiguelCastillo]

#8630

[MiguelCastillo]

Here you go @LarZ

cc @dangoor

[Mark-Simulacrum]

Perhaps changing this to "Antialiased (Default)" would better fit the themes selection styling?

[Mark-Simulacrum]

@MiguelCastillo Not sure if this is only because there probably is not much difference between the two (antialiasing and subpixel antialiasing), but on my Ubuntu 14.04.1 64bit machine, I don't see any difference between either option.

Also, it appears that unlike the themes option, this option does not dynamically update while still in the menu.

[MiguelCastillo]

@Mark-Simulacrum I think that's what @larz0 was implying. Not all OSs will have this option applicable to them. When I change it on my mac, I definitely see a difference. Hmmm, let's see what the rest of the team says about this setting.

[Mark-Simulacrum]

Perhaps the Themes... menu could be renamed to something like Visual Preferences? I think that since only two of the options in this dialog really apply to themes, it might help users find those options (such as Antialiasing and Font controls).

[MiguelCastillo]

@Mark-Simulacrum Yeah that's not a bad idea actually. I am not sure if it's too soon to rename it since we just released the themes feature and changing the menu right away may not be well perceived. Let's see what other folks here think.

[marcelgerber]

Re-posting it here:
@MiguelCastillo @larz0 What about making the value OS-dependent (Mac: antialiased, Linux/Win: subpixel-antialiased) or adding a preference that is not exposed in the UI (we actually do that for many things like proxy or highlightMatches)?

And about renaming the menu entry:
Imo it should be at least Themes & Visual preferences so that the Themes are still easily locatable.

[Mark-Simulacrum]

I like the idea of making it OS specific (in terms of default setting) but I feel like it should be exposed in the UI, or at least make it more obvious where the preferences file can be found (currently under Debug which does not make much sense to me, perhaps putting it under Edit would make more sense.).

[marcelgerber]

Hm, it's a setting most users probably won't ever touch (or even know what it changes), so imho we don't need an UI. But you may be right, the Debug menu is not the best choice, but the Edit menu is already cluttered up and it's not too easy to find a entry there, too.

[Mark-Simulacrum]

I agree that the edit menu is cluttered up (especially if you have many extensions), so perhaps a preferences tab dedicated to preferences and settings (themes, auto close braces, linting, etc. would be moved there). That is probably not in the scope of this pull request, though. This new tab could also be implemented as a gear in the icon bar on the right hand side, once Brackets decides on whether or not to implement a preferences UI. (Which would have all the preferences, with support for extensions adding either adding a tab or adding to the main list).

[MiguelCastillo]

@marcelgerber I agree this setting isn't going to be very much used. That was also my initial response. I did the changes and a PR so that we can at least discuss it with everyone.