Webkit Font Smoothing
With the latest versions of Google Chrome and Safari 5, we can now move away from the -webkit-text-stroke hack I had previously endorsed, and move to a much better solution.
As pointed out by Tim Van Damme, the Webkit nightly builds had added -webkit-font-smoothing which actually let us set the type of font smoothing we want instead of hacking the browser into the right setting. And now with Safari 5, this CSS attribute is available in a released version.
I’ve updated the resource on thinning text in Webkit to use this new technique, and have already updated this site’s CSS.
Wow what a significant difference between default and antialiased smoothing! I think I have to download the new Safari-Version, to check that new feature.
cool, thanks for sharing!
Yep, check out http://www.cssbasics.com. Text looks horrid in FF for me, but Safari automatically smooths it out. Didn’t actually know what was happening when I first noticed this.
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
I’d only recommend this for light text on dark background, like on your site. It seems that Safari 5 has improved the default font rendering for dark text on light backgrounds. I blogged about that here: http://christophzillgens.com/en/articles/-webkit-font-smoothing-reloaded
Thanks for the information..will help me as I was in a similar fix!!
hey all — this looks awesome in safari/chrome. but is there any known fix to get a similar effect going in firefox/gecko? specifically on the mac? in windows i know that cleartype will fix most jagged fonts, but system settings are out of our hands.
Mmm, delicious new tricks. Keep writing them up!
Nice, thanks for the information …