• 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.

  • more info can be found here and here

• Included the latest @ChicoThorn profile. Thanks again.

• Included two prototype profiles for QD-OLED panel provided by @bp2008 in #932 (comment)

Fixed the broken x64 support of vistuner.
Vistuner is now HiDPI ready.

⚠️Deprecated by v1.2022.801.0 preview

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.

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.

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.

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

1. Compatible with shadow stack (introduced with new CPUs), system apps on Windows 10+new CPU no longer crash because of that.
2. Bump FreeType to the latest git version (freetype/freetype@79ed536).
3. No longer intercept application environments.
4. Fixed a bug where an application could crash on mactype unloading because of some improper memory writes and assumptions.
5. Fixed a bug where in service mode, some applications occasionally couldn't be rendered.
6. Fixed a bug where an application may crash if a bitmap font is used (Windows10 only)
7. Fixed a bug where texts could be garbled when fontsubsitutes are used. (e.g. with Telegram)
8. A folder and its subfolders can now be included/excluded, it just needs to be ended with a ""
9. Fixed a bug where light+lcd didn't work as intended.
10. 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.

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! 😊 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! 😊

We're pleased to announce the next official beta of MacType. Although this is a beta you should find it's stable for every day use.

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!

Bug fixes/new features since beta4:

• Includes changes from the DirectWrite test version See Note 1
• Simpler version numbering
• Unicode plane bug fixed and other painting bugs fixed
• Will no longer crash Microsoft Edge
• Improved detection of Registry Mode in MacTray
• Brings back svchost.exe hooking so that UWP in Windows 10 with service mode and tray mode are supported
• Per-group configuration is back
• Color fonts in Chrome are way better (very close to the real color) See Note 2
• New useful profiles: Clean Sharp, Clean Soft, mufunyo, and extratype

Note 1: DirectWrite test version

In the DirectWrite test version more DirectWrite hooking points were added, and @extratype made the code much more readable and easier to maintain (thanks @extratype). The DirectWrite changes are now included in this main beta.

Note 2: Color Fonts

For more info on how to use Color fonts, see https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/wiki/ColorFont. For some reason Chrome (and Cent Browser) inverts the colors of color fonts. So we have added the InvertColor option to fix this. For more information see https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/wiki/InvertColor

Update 1: (20-Oct-2018) beta4r2 - fixed minor problem with installer warning messages
Update 2: As of the next release we will be switching to a simpler versioning system, in the format YYYY.N. So the final stable release of this beta will be version 2018.1. For more information see this wiki article

If you experience any problems please search the Issues and log a new Issue if your problem isn't listed. Thanks for your support!

This release is now feature frozen.

Bug fixes/new features:

• Update FreeType to git commit 0c4feb72cf976f63d4bf62436bc48f190d0e0c28 (this fixes issue #446)
• Support color fonts (e.g. emoji fonts... see options below)
• Brand new robust installer (read important note below! ... resolves #443)
• Dropped support for 16bit graphics to fix issues related to the Touhou series (issue #440)
• Fixed compatibility with Qt WebKit (issue #195)
• Fixed a bug with malformed ExtTextout
• Updated tray app to better fit multiple screen scenarios (issue #161)
• Tray app can intercept explorer in service mode now
• A little tweak for diacritics
• Fixed deadlock bug in tray app
• Fixed environment error in tuner app (issue #346)
• Fixed translation bug in tuner app (issues #445, #444)
• Using decimal characters (',' or '.') in ini files should work correctly (issue #358)
• Updated to the latest FreeType 2.9.1
• Merged some assemblers from the latest EasyHook
• Better compatibility with Windows 10 (in theory... I've never encountered any incompatibility before)
• Better process capture with WMI process capture, MacTray should now capture newly created process in less than 1s and no snapshot poll is required. So there should be no CPU use peak every 5s anymore
• Won't terminate processes if unsupported fonts with vert table are found
• Won't crash process when the specific glyph cannot be found in FreeType when Windows font linking is used
• Does not include Infinality as this is still experimental

Workarounds for Chrome, Firefox, Java (IDEA, Picasa, etc.)

These have been moved to the wiki.

New experimental features:

✨ 😎 Color font support! 😎 ✨

To enable color fonts, in your ini file use the directive:

[experimental]
colorfont=1

To make colors appear correctly in Chrome, the invertcolor flag is required:

[experimental]
invertcolor=1

Or use per-app configure like this:

[experimental@chrome.exe]
invertcolor=1

New Installer - Important!

The new installer will try very hard to remove everything related to MacType and MacType-Patch, in order to ensure a consistent state after install. This includes profiles - so please backup your profiles!

It will also attempt to clean up the old installer even if you were unable to uninstall through Apps & Features. We're looking for feedback on the new installer so please let us know if you have any problems.

This is the same as 1.2018.917.0-beta, plus the new easyhook-20180918-2.zip files for convenience. This is the latest MacType release.

If you are having problems, please follow the instructions below to update before reporting issues. Please also use and test this version if you are in a position to beta test. If no issues are reported this will be moved to Release Candidate.

To install v1.2018.09.17-beta2

• Uninstall any old versions earlier than v1.2017.06.28
• Download and install MacTypeInstaller_2017_0628_0.exe
• Select Typical Install to avoid missing files (will be fixed in the next installer)
• Download MacType-v1.2018.09.17-beta2.zip (this version)
  • Rename the files in in C:\Program Files\MacType, that are included in the beta2 zip
  • Copy the beta2 files to C:\Program Files\MacType
  • Reboot! You're now running v1.2018.09.17-beta2

Important notes!

• For Windows 10 only:
  • Avoid Registry Mode... Use only Service Mode or Tray Mode
  • Go to Services -> Mactype Service and change the Startup Type Automatic (Delayed Start)
• If your PC has Secure Boot:
  • Use Service Mode if you to keep Secure Boot enabled (recommended)
  • For Registry Mode to work, Secure Boot must be disabled (not recommended)
  • (Note: Service Mode and Registry Mode give the same results in most cases)

If you experience any problems please search the Issues and log a new Issue if your problem isn't listed. Thanks for your support!

Changes in this version

• Updated to the latest FreeType 2.9.1
• Merged some assemblers from the latest EasyHook
• Better compatible with Windows 10 (in theory. I've never encountered any incompatibility before)
• Better process capture with WMI process capture, MacTray should now capture newly created process in less than 1s and no snapshot poll is required. So there should be no CPU use peak every 5s anymore
• Won't terminate processes if unsupported fonts with vert table are found
• Won't crash process when the specific glyph cannot be found in FreeType when Windows font linking is used
• Does not include Infinality as this is still experimental

App-specific settings

Firefox

To use GDI (and full MacType) in Firefox:

1. In Firefox navigate to about:config
2. Search for azure
3. Change both graphics.canvas.azure.backends and graphics.content.azure.backends to direct2d1.1,cairo,skia
   
4. Search for gfx.direct2d.disabled
5. Double-click to change it to true
6. Close and restart Firefox for the changes to take effect. Fonts should now be rendered with MacType

Chrome

Unfortunately there is no known way to disable DirectWrite in Chrome or other apps that use the Chromium engine (e.g. Electron apps like Slack, Spotify, Atom, etc.). Fortunately CentBrowser, a fork of Chrome, has kept GDI font rendering, so works perfectly with MacType.

You can use CentBrowser exactly as you would Chrome, including extensions, and Chrome sign-in.

To use it:

1. Download and install CentBrowser from https://www.centbrowser.com/
2. In CentBrowser navigate to chrome://flags/
3. Search for DirectWrite
4. Set it to disabled
   
5. Click Restart Now for changes to take effect. Fonts should now be rendered with MacType