Kerning looks pretty bad

[rien333]

System info

Device: iPod 6th gen
Rockbox Version: Dev build from 8 februari, 2015
Adwaitapod Theme: adwaitapod dark simplified
Downloaded From: Github

Description

I can't share screenshots currently, but the font kerning is unfortuntately not something to write home about. Not sure how much you as a theme designer can do about this, though.

Here is a good example of what I mean (neither my photo nor adwaitapod, but the problem is essentially the same) :

(sourced from this similar problem of kerning in rockbx on reddit)

Note the enormous amount of space between the l and the o in "Gilotina", for example. These sort of problems are all over the place in adwaitapod. Apples stock OS looks much better in this regard (and so does Gnome 😉)

[rien333]

May also be a good moment to switch to Inter, as Gnome 48 will say goodbye to Cantarell.

[D0-0K]

Yeah, unfortunately with themes you need to convert to Rockbox's own font format. The converter doesn't respect any kerning features though, and only puts a set space between each character (so adwaitapod's is set to 1px). I've experimented a lot with the converter settings for the upcoming Themify 2 theme, but it's so hard to get good kerning. Adwaitapod 4.0 will be switching to the new Inter-based adwaita sans, though this wont be for a while, I'm hoping it should at least be better than Cantarell was to convert.

[rien333]

Thank you for all your work, and I'm looking forward to testing Themify 2!

Until I find time to further investigate this myself, I'll either put up with it or try out a monospaced font.