Disabling font smoothing (antialiasing) through AppleAntiAliasingThreshold

Disabling font smoothing (antialiasing) through AppleAntiAliasingThreshold

We have gotten surprisingly many requests to support the AppleAntiAliasingThreshold property which allows you to turn off antialiasing for a custom font size in a single application as opposed to system wide. Since we had a bug we needed to fix in that area, we implemented this setting as well. It is available as of yesterday's weekly (build 3658).

How to use it:

1. Open Terminal.
   
2. Enter (without quotes): "defaults write com.operasoftware.Opera AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128".
   
3. Restart Opera.
   

To remove the property, enter: "defaults delete com.operasoftware.Opera AppleAntiAliasingThreshold"
You can also edit the property list (plist) file directly. It is located at ~/Library/Preferencescom.operasoftware.Opera.plist; ~ is your home folder.

In the example above the font size chosen is 128. This means that any font which is 128pt or smaller will not have font smoothing applied. Change the number to fit your needs.

It's very nice for Opera to accomodate the mentally disabled with the option for this feature. I'm glad we get such direct responses to problem threads in the weeklies now!

(Okay, maybe that's too harsh. It's nice that Opera accomodates the sanity challenged within the community. Aliased type? Ick ick ick!)

Originally posted by Joen:

In the example above the font size chosen is 128. This means that any font which is 128pt or smaller will have font smoothing applied. Change the number to fit your needs.

I believe you meant to say "This means that any font which is 128pt or larger will have font smoothing applied."

Can I just say that this has been the one thing I have been waiting for since buying my Mac Mini last year . I simply could not use Opera on the Mac , as I sadly couldn't read anything . Perhaps on a large monitor , the font smoothing looks like it ought to , but on my 15" LCD everything in Opera looked way out of focus . I had been using Firefox and Thunderbird , which I had finally started to get used to ... But for no real reason ( and not having seen this post ) decided to give the latest Opera one last try . I almost burst into tears of joy when it opened up , to finally be able to read webpages on the Mac in Opera , such excitement . My emails are in the same window as the web , integrated RSS again , truly delightful .

Now if we could only have some sort of AdBlocker like Firefox has , I think I'd go off pop !

There's a built-in content blocker in Opera already. Right click on any page background (not on links, images, plug-in content, etc.) and from the context menu use "Block content".

To get more of a firefox feeling I have made a custom "Adblock" button (see screenshot attached). If you want to get that one aswell go to http://www.demuths.de/iopera/data/00000008.htm#page and drag the "Toggle Content Block mode" link to any toolbar, I use the status bar. Opera will then add the "Adblock" button. On any page click it to turn on the the Content block mode, click away all the adds and hit "Done" or "Ready" in the content block toolbar on top of the page.

Screenshot of my setup with the Adblock button in the status bar: adblock.jpg

You are right about the built in ad-blocker . Trouble is , I couldn't get it to work 'properly' . If I browse to a page which has an Ad on it , I right click on the page , select 'Content Blocking' then shift click the Ad , and away it goes . If I reload that page and another (random) Ad is displayed , I have to do the same again . If I then move off the main homepage and onto a subpage , if that page shows an Ad ( even if it is the same as either of the Ads' I just blocked ) they re-appear and I have to go through the whole performance again .

AdBlock+ for FireFox has none of that . It simply blocks all ( or very nearly all ) Ads' . If a page does not display properly , it can be easily disabled too .

I have however found a solution which appears to work superbly , and is free-ware too ( GPL ) . What I am using now is called Privoxy ( www.privoxy.org ) this acts as a proxy server , filtering all Ads' automatically . Available for Mac OS X ( claims to be only PPC compatible but seems to be fine on my Intel Mac ) , Windows , Linux , etc.

Either that or find yourself a css file that blocks ads. I have one and it works wonderfully. It seems more effective than privoxy was, too.

Originally posted by Riba:

Originally posted by Joen:

In the example above the font size chosen is 128. This means that any font which is 128pt or smaller will have font smoothing applied. Change the number to fit your needs.

I believe you meant to say "This means that any font which is 128pt or larger will have font smoothing applied."

Actually, I was missing a "not", but with the same misleading result. Thanks for pointing it out, corrected.

Am I doing something silly, or does this Terminal update process no longer work?

It should work in 9.25, but I believe it's currently broken in 9.50 builds. Which build are you using?

Thank you for the reply. I'm using 9.50 (4591).

Do you know if it going to be fixed anytime soon?

I hope so, but unfortunately I can't promise anything.

I can't get this to work using:

Version 9.64
Build 5270
Platform Mac OS X
System 10.5.6

I wanted to move all my computers over to Opera since trying it last night. Everything is great on Linux and Windows XP, but my primary work computer is a Mac and the fonts are not following my system setting of no antialiasing.

I, too, made the mistake of applying "defaults write com.operasoftware.Opera AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128" to my 9.64 Mac install. Now I can't even render a webpage.... everything comes up blank. I can still get the "about:opera" screen, though.

I tried undoing it by typing "defaults write com.operasoftware.Opera AppleAntiAliasingThreshold" but that had no effect.

Please HELP! Opera was amazing before I broke it!

Thanks.

Although it forced some sort of error in the terminal, my Opera magically now works!

Thanks!!