Difference in rendering xft fonts in xorg-server and XQuartz.app

[Chris Jones]

Hi,

On 28/05/2019 1:25 am, Richard Cobbe wrote:
> I just got a new MacBook and I'm setting up macports on it as part of the
> initial configuration.  I've been using macports with XQuartz for many
> years, but I gather that XQuartz is no longer actively maintained, so I
> figured I'd try xorg-server instead.  Everything installed fine and I'm
> able to open and use clients, but using xft fonts in urxvt (also installed
> via macports) doesn't produce the same results on screen under xorg-server
> as it does under XQuartz.
> 
> I've put screen shots of the results at <https://imgur.com/a/TTNFx8b>.  The
> first image contains the results under XQuartz, and the second under
> xorg-server.  This is urxvt from the rxvt-unicode port, v9.22, on MacOS
> 10.14.5 started with the command
>          LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 urxvt -fn xft:Consolas:pixelsize=16
> I prefer the first rendering quite strongly.  Is there a way (installing
> a missing package, perhaps?) for me to get this rendering in xorg-server?

Honestly, I cannot see any difference between those two screen shots. 
What exactly is it about the second you say is different and you prefer ?

As you note, the XQuartz.app version is quite a bit older than the
xorg-server port in macports. We do though have a legacy port which 
provides an older 1.18 version of the server.

Titan ~/Projects/MacPorts/ports > port search xorg-server
xorg-server @1.20.4 (x11, devel)
     The X.org / Xquartz X server.

xorg-server-1.18 @1.18.4 (x11, devel)
     The X.org / Xquartz X server.

Could you try that, to see if that reverts whatever the difference is 
you see ?

Chris

> 
> Interestingly, while testing out various combinations, I discovered that if
> I tried to open the terminal while running xorg-server but with XQuartz.app
> installed, I got the nicer rendering.  I'm about as sure as I can be that I
> was in fact running the X server from xorg-server in this case, as the
> value of $DISPLAY ended in "org.macports:0", and right-clicking on the dock
> icon for the running X server and selecting Options > Show In Finder
> pointed to an .app in /Applications/MacPorts
> 
> Uninstalling XQuartz.app and restarting the X server produced the inferior
> rendering again.
> 
> Any suggestions welcome!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Richard
>