SDL_ttf

iv. Render

These functions render text using a TTF_Font. There are three modes of rendering:

Solid

Quick and Dirty
Create an 8-bit palettized surface and render the given text at fast quality with the given font and color. The 0 pixel value is the colorkey, giving a transparent background, and the 1 pixel value is set to the text color. The colormap is set to have the desired foreground color at index 1, this allows you to change the color without having to render the text again. Colormap index 0 is of course not drawn, since it is the colorkey, and thus transparent, though it's actual color is 255 minus each RGB component of the foreground. This is the fastest rendering speed of all the rendering modes. This results in no box around the text, but the text is not as smooth. The resulting surface should blit faster than the Blended one. Use this mode for FPS and other fast changing updating text displays.

Shaded

Slow and Nice, but with a Solid Box
Create an 8-bit palettized surface and render the given text at high quality with the given font and colors. The 0 pixel value is background, while other pixels have varying degrees of the foreground color from the background color. This results in a box of the background color around the text in the foreground color. The text is antialiased. This will render slower than Solid, but in about the same time as Blended mode. The resulting surface should blit as fast as Solid, once it is made. Use this when you need nice text, and can live with a box...

Blended

Slow Slow Slow, but Ultra Nice over another image
Create a 32-bit ARGB surface and render the given text at high quality, using alpha blending to dither the font with the given color. This results in a surface with alpha transparency, so you don't have a solid colored box around the text. The text is antialiased. This will render slower than Solid, but in about the same time as Shaded mode. The resulting surface will blit slower than if you had used Solid or Shaded. Use this when you want high quality, and the text isn't changing too fast.