Oslo, Norway — (press release excerpt) — Trolltech's Qt 2.3, the newest release of the company's C++ cross-platform GUI application framework, gives Unix users a much more sophisticated treatment of screen and print type. Anti-aliased fonts and True Type and Type 1 font support for printing represent the two newest improvements to Qt. Keith Packard, who wrote the patch for the latest version of Xfree, eliminated one of the bigger complaints on Unix — ugly fonts. Qt 2.3 is the first development tool to incorporate this functionality into an official release.

“KDE 2.1 automatically takes advantage of Qt's support of anti-aliased fonts,” says Kurt Granroth, a core KDE developer. “The result is one of the nicest looking user interfaces in the world.” Anti-aliasing fonts allows monitors and printers to smooth the rough edges of each letter, “which makes browsing the web, reading mail, and just using the desktop that much easier and more fun to do,” said Eirik Aavitsland, Qt Product manager for Trolltech. “In fonts that are not anti-aliased, the
transition from the font to the background is abrupt and uncontrolled. In anti-aliased fonts, the transition is gradual, and much more pleasing to the eye.” The support of True Type and Type 1 for printing documents on Unix also provides a user benefit by ensuring that the printer and the screen use the same font formatting.

Qt 2.3 will be licensed under Trolltech's usual dual licensing scheme. For X11 users, they may receive open source versions of Qt under either the QPL or GPL for creating free software. For Windows users and X11 users wishing to create closed-source, proprietary software, they may purchase Qt from Trolltech.

 
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