How to make FreeMind render fonts smooth again?

Question

After upgrading from Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.10, the mindmapping application FreeMind shows "rough" fonts (means, without any antialiasing) in some parts.

The mindmap display still has anti-aliased fonts, as long as I have that configured under "Tools → Preferences … → Appearance → Antialias". However, the menu fonts and anything written in the editor (rich text editor or plain text editor) has no antialiasing anymore.

How to fix that?

Answer 1

The switch from Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.10 included the switch from OpenJDK 10 to 11, and probably that (re-)introduced a bug related to the configuration of anti-aliasing in all Swing-based Java applications, such as Freemind.

There is a general solution here, which still works in Ubuntu 18.10. But, at least in desktop environments based on the Openbox window manager (LXDE / LXQt / Lubuntu), the relevant options are not picked up by FreeMind when configured in any of the following places:

• /etc/environment
• /etc/profile.d/…
• /etc/xdg/openbox/environment (recommended here)

Instead, use the following solution (assumed that you use the regularly installed Freemind startup script written in bash):

1. Create and edit the following file:

   • ~/.freemind/freemindrc to configure anti-aliasing for your user only, or
   • /etc/freemind/freemindrc to configure it system-wide

2. Put in the following line and save the file:

   _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on -Dswing.aatext=true'
   

3. Start Freemind normally. Its start script will read the file you created and use the option provided.

Now, the Freemind editor text is properly anti-aliased.

The menu fonts are anti-aliased as well, but may have strange artefacts that makes them ugly in a different way. To fix this, you can switch to the "Gtk" or "GTK+" look & feel under "Tools → Preferences … → Appearance → Look and Feel → Look and Feel". But be aware that these themes have their own problems, just not about fonts. Update: The artefacts of the menu fonts were properly resolved with an update for Ubuntu 18.10 that came in around April or May 2019. No need to try the "Gtk" or "GTK+" look & feel anymore.

Note that if you installed FreeMind as a snap package, this solution will only work if you start FreeMind with the command /snap/freemind/current/freemind/freemind.sh. It will not work if you use the automatically generated desktop icons or menu entries, as these use a different wrapper mechanism to start FreeMind. (Which can be adapted as well, but I don't yet know how … .)