Sometimes, I wonder how my desktop looks to other people. Normal sighted people, I mean. For me, everything is much smaller and always slightly blurry (almost antialiased) because of my eyesight.

Maybe it does look horribly pixelated and super ugly to other people, and that’s why everyone prefers smoothed fonts and UIs and all that … ? 😂

@thecanine@twtxt.net Wow. I’m not an artist in any way, but I have tried to make icons for programs or fonts every now and then. Making something that is still recognizable at so few pixels is hard. Hats off!

In 1996, they came up with the X11 “SECURITY” extension:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4w548u/what_is_up_with_the_x11_security_extension/

This is what could have (eventually) solved the security issues that we’re currently seeing with X11. Those issues are cited as one of the reasons for switching to Wayland.

That extension never took off. The person on reddit wonders why – I think it’s simple: Containers and sandboxes weren’t a thing in 1996. It hardly mattered if X11 was “insecure”. If you could run an X11 client, you probably already had access to the machine and could just do all kinds of other nasty things.

Today, sandboxing is a thing. Today, this matters.

I’ve heard so many times that “X11 is beyond fixable, it’s hopeless.” I don’t believe that. I believe that these problems are solveable with X11 and some devs have said “yeah, we could have kept working on it”. It’s that people don’t want to do it:

Why not extend the X server?

Because for the first time we have a realistic chance of not having to do that.

https://wayland.freedesktop.org/faq.html

I’m not in a position to judge the devs. Maybe the X.Org code really is so bad that you want to run away, screaming in horror. I don’t know.

But all this was a choice. I don’t buy the argument that we never would have gotten rid of things like core fonts.

All the toolkits and programs had to be ported to Wayland. A huge, still unfinished effort. If that was an acceptable thing to do, then it would have been acceptable to make an “X12” that keeps all the good things about X11, remains compatible where feasible, eliminates the problems, and requires some clients to be adjusted. (You could have still made “X11X12” like “XWayland” for actual legacy programs.)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org The underlines are a bit much, yes. It appears to be related to my font (Helvetica) … Maybe they do some Unicode trickery these days, I don’t know. 🫤

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

These are lists in your Inkscape example, right?

The font stuff? Yeah, that’s a scrollable list where you can select the current font.

Once or twice a year, I make an effort to switch from dark mode / black terminals to light mode again.

It usually doesn’t end well, because the contrast is just not as good. There’s a reason that things like professional DAWs or CAD software use a dark theme.

With a heavy bold font, it’s much better:

https://movq.de/v/331aa40bde/s.png

My font doesn’t get any bolder than this, though. I’d have to make a new variant of it. Mhh. 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net I knew you were short sided from day one I saw Yarn. On desktop everything is huge, and I assumed it was to cater short-sightedness. Also, you have enabled underlines on buttons on iOS, bold and bigger fonts, etc., so that was also a give away. Sorry if I digress, but, glasses wouldn’t help? I have to wear mine all the time, otherwise I am also near blind myself!

@movq@www.uninformativ.de This is awesome! Your server/connection is slow, thought. It took ages to load the GIF! Off topic, what font are you using on that screenshot?

Posted to Entropy Arbitrage: Developer Journal, 中国语言日 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2020/04/20/chinese.html #programming #project #devjournal #bicker #uxuyu #font

Posted to Entropy Arbitrage: Developer Journal, Jefferson’s Birthday https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2020/04/13/jefferson.html #programming #project #devjournal #bicker #uxuyu #font