Releases: snowie2000/mactype
Version 2025.1.17
This is a maintenance version with important bug fixes. Everyone is encouraged to update.
Important bug fix:
- A serious DirectWrite bug was discovered in #1028 that can cause applications that use DirectWrite to not function properly or even crash.
What's new:
- Update freetype to ee1310ab5ca2897b760258b94f3d9230335cc2c0
- Per-app
ArmBreaker
is now implemented. More details are provided below. - Thanks to the donation from Joe Lowe (https://pismotec.com/), all MacType files including the installer are now digitally signed! This should make quite some antivirus software happy! Great thanks!
Per-app armbreaker:
Before version 2025.1.17, ArmBreaker
which is under the Experimental
section can only be effective when set globally.
I.e.
[experimental]
armbreaker=1 ; this will work properly
[[email protected]]
armbreaker=1 ; this will not work at all
That's because this walkaround about chrome's integrity check needs its parent process to do the modification when the actual process is being created. However, previously, the parent process stored global config information only and had no idea what to do for a specific process.
Because disabling mitigation policies for processes is potentially risky and should be limited to strictly necessary processes only, enabling such a "feature" globally should not be a solution everlasting and now is the time.
From this version on, syntaxes like
[[email protected]]
armbreaker=1
or
[experimental@browsers]
armbreaker=1
[[email protected]]
alternative=browsers
[[email protected]]
alternative=browsers
will work!
PS: Because of the way this walkaround works, after the profile is changed, only when the parent process gets restarted will it become effective.
E.g. adding chrome.exe
to the armbreaker exception without restarting explorer.exe
(or mactype service) may not work for newly launched chromes. You have to reapply mactype to it.
Version 2024.9.14
Minor bug fix version for manual loaders.
No need to upgrade if you use service mode or tray mode or even registry mode.
What's new:
- MacLoader(64).exe has been updated with no more easyhook dependencies. fixed #1018
- The way they work changed
- Now they utilizes detours'
DetourCreateProcessWithDllEx
to start up executables, which is stabler and more native. - Applications that doesn't allow loading unsigned images will simply fail to launch with the new loader.
- Lanuch application via association is not supported any more, which means you can't "start" a .zip file with the loader while previously, you can.
- Now they utilizes detours'
Version 2024.8.15
I know, I know it's not Aug 15 any more. Better late then never. Thank you for your patience!
Here's what's new in this version:
- Bump freetype version git:f92c96550ad763639158587974cf11067ace743d
- Bump easyhook version git:16f641c8e2197b01095f548c94dcbe696a816a05
- Mactype should now no longer cause application fail to start because of the annoying "access denied" error.
- Improve English translation, thanks to @sammilucia
- New profile ChicoThorn 2024.07.24 thanks to @ChicoThorn
- Easyhook is statically linked which means no more easyhk32/64.dll is needed, and less conflicts.
Version 2023.5.31, still preview
-
Fixed a crash that was caused by incorrect indices of ID2D1Device5 and ID2D1Device6 #938. Thanks to @lhecker
-
Implemented basic external control via messaging and CLI.
-
Included the latest @ChicoThorn profile. Thanks again.
-
Included two prototype profiles for QD-OLED panel provided by @bp2008 in #932 (comment)
v1.2022.801.0 preview
Fixed the broken x64 support of vistuner.
Vistuner is now HiDPI ready.
1.2022.729.0 test build
Fixed a serious bug where individual font settings are not applied in the previous test build. (#874)
Added support of x64 application for vistuner. It's broken
Make vistuner operations easier to understand.
1.2022.720.2 test build
This test build replaces the v1.2022.720.0 internal test build
DEPRECATED
DO NOT DOWNLOAD IF NOT ASKED!
This test build fixed the faulty harmony LCD rendering. Now it works as intended.
This new version should have a very close look to the classic Cleartype style one.
A new option has been added to support custom pixel layout:
[general] PixelLayout=a,b,c,d,e,f
where each letter represents an integer from -64 to 64, describing the coordinate of each sub-pixels.
More info can be found at https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-lcd_rendering.html
A detailed guide will be provided once it's released to the public.
MacType tray app also got a bug squash so it's more stable now.
v1.2022.720.0 internal test build
REPLACED BY 1.2022.720.2, DO NOT USE
The attachment has been removed.
This test version includes mactype files works in Harmony LCD rendering mode, which means we can now work with pentile LCD panels.
Mactray.exe has been vastly improved, so that:
- service mode now works properly
- application UIs can be automatically refreshed when mactype is engaged.
- wmi sink is now much more stable than before, mactype should be working flawlessly after reboot
A new real-time tuner has been added, which allows you to tune your profiles while reflects what it looks like in real applications
Child process hooking has been improved so that there will be fewer cases that applications listed in the unloaddll section still got loaded (and unload after) causing certain apps to crash.
MacType 2021.1-RC1
Release candidate 1 is here. It will become final if no major error is found in the next few weeks. So please don't hesitate to raise an issue if you encounter anything suspicious.
Breaking changes
- Windows XP support was dropped. Please upgrade if you're still using this ancient system.
- Option
ForceChangeFont
was removed. Please use regular fontsubsitution instead. - Registry mode was removed in the wizard. However, a detailed guide will be provided in the wiki to let you set it up manually if you still wish to use it.
New option
A new option under experimental
section was introduced: ArmBreaker
It allows mactype to mildly compromise part of the system mitigation policy to make mactype work with some finicky programs like Chrome...
Changes and fixes introduced in RC1
- Compatible with shadow stack (introduced with new CPUs), system apps on Windows 10+new CPU no longer crash because of that.
- Bump FreeType to the latest git version (freetype/freetype@79ed536).
- No longer intercept application environments.
- Fixed a bug where an application could crash on mactype unloading because of some improper memory writes and assumptions.
- Fixed a bug where in service mode, some applications occasionally couldn't be rendered.
- Fixed a bug where an application may crash if a bitmap font is used (Windows10 only)
- Fixed a bug where texts could be garbled when fontsubsitutes are used. (e.g. with Telegram)
- A folder and its subfolders can now be included/excluded, it just needs to be ended with a ""
- Fixed a bug where light+lcd didn't work as intended.
- Localization adjustment.
Contributions are appreciated
All contributions are extremely appreciated. For now, some threads have been created to aggregate certain types of contributions.
- #742 for localizations.
- #557 for screenshot and profile tweaks
- #553 for tech discussions
Any help on the currently struggling problems like UWP apps, DirectWrite, and system-enhanced scaling will be fantastic.
Have a nice one. Enjoy.
MacType 2019.1-beta6
Please note if you downloaded before 21-June-19, there is a minor error in the beta6 release. Please edit your main MacType.ini file and delete the svchost.exe
entry, then restart your computer (or simply re-download and install the post 21-June version). We apologise for the inconvenience.
Hi, we're pleased to announce the next official beta of MacType. This is mainly a bugfix release, and should be the last beta before the release (2019.1).
Install: MacTypeInstaller_2019.1-beta6.exe
New Installer - Important!
The new installer will uninstall any old MacType packages, and clean up MacType-Patch and other test versions. This includes profiles, so please backup your profiles!
If you experience any problem with this release please search Issues and log a new Issue if need be. Thanks for your support!
Fixes/new features since beta5:
- Added font inclusion (see below)
- Improved loader (Works for Ableton and many more applications that previous would crash MacType due to a Windows 10 security enhancement)
- Improved font identification, a better way to distinguish some malformed font names
- Updated to latest FreeType 2.10.0
- Updated to latest EasyHook 2.7.6789.0
- Windows 8/8.1 compatibility improved
- Windows XP/2003 compatibility improved (yes we still support 32-bit XP/2003!)
- MacTray now has a bug report system (see below)
- The new installer now cleans up files in Program Files (x86) it was missing
- MacType Updater is now working
- MacTray.exe now properly detects if MacType is running in Service Mode, and opens the Wizard instead of MacTray
- Added a new Profile thanks to @ChicoThorn, designed to work at 117% screen scaling
Font inclusion
As requested! π To use the new font inclusion feature, add the font name(s) under the [Include] section and only those specified font(s) will be rendered. If a font is both "Included" and "Excluded", it will be excluded. If nothing is specified under [Include] or the section doesn't exist, font inclusion is disabled.
Why have we added font inclusion? Well first of all because it was requested... But also if you run a complex Windows environment, whitelisting (or including) several fonts, gives you a lot more control over things than excluding potentially hundreds of fonts.
MacTray bug report
This allows you to save a bug report instead of sending it currently, and gives you the info we need to help find and fix bugs more easily.
UWP apps
UWP stands for Universal Windows Application. MacType works for all native UWP apps, but not for apps converted from the old Win32 applications.
Thanks for your support and feedback, here's to better font rendering for Windows! π