http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13416
--- Comment #18 from Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net> 2010-03-25 04:55:18 PST ---
The reference documentation on modern font naming is
http://blogs.msdn.com/text/attachment/2249036.ashx
It's not short or well written but that's the best we have. It would be nice is
someone wrote a clear summary of it (I've started in
http://nim.fedorapeople.org/Understanding%20fonts%20and%20fontconfig.tar.gz but
I do not seem to find the time to finish it)
Apps need to :
1. recognize fonts that use a style conformant to the WWS model defined in this
paper (not "read the WWS name" but "check whatever naming layer they use
conform to the model). Probably both the canonical WWS style name and the
aliases MS identified in its paper
4. provide means for users to pass from one of the styles to another (as in,
bold-er, wide-er, etc)
And *then* when apps are able to use WWS fonts properly people can think of
band-aids to process non-WWS fonts.
As long as apps provide a "bold" button but have no idea how to manage all the
weight variants defined in the whitepaper for example there's little hope
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--- Comment #17 from Sam Liddicott <sam(a)liddicott.com> 2010-03-25 04:36:39 PST ---
Apart from this long rambling discussion spanning 2 years, is there a concise
source of information to which we might refer developers of packages from which
they can learn how to implement the missing 20%.
It would be easy to close this bug as wont-fix if there is a simple message to
convey on what needed to be done in the applications.
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--- Comment #16 from Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net> 2010-03-25 04:20:42 PST ---
This is fine in theory but who is going to write the quirks? We don't even have
correct fontconfig configuration for all non-broken fonts in Fedora for
example, let alone broken out-of-distribution fonts (and people have failed to
find the correct settings for CJK for years).
If you want to write quirks, fontconfig has public documentation about its
config syntax, we've added some fedora-side in fontpackages-devel, etc. So,
nothing here to stop you now. But it is much easier for a font author to fix
its font than to try to intercept all the ways applications query font metadata
and fix it up at this level. (because fonts formats have accumulated over the
years *many* different naming layers and you can't guess beforehand which one
an app will use, or worse which *mix* of accesses it's going to try, assuming
they are consistent when the data font side is not).
And it remains that the apps people complain of most (openoffice.org, firefox,
inkscape, etc) have broken font handling (as in, they've implemented 80% of
what's needed and someone who cares will do the rest) that shows breakage as
soon as they get fed non-trivial fonts. And the breakage is *not* in fontconfig
it's in the use of the library application-side. So it's *useless* to try to
fix fonts of fake font characteristics at fontconfig level if you don't get the
apps fixed first.
Complex fonts work in Adobe apps for example because Adobe did its work (1.
released complex fonts *and* 2. added needed bits ui-side so the new features
could be accessed). You're asking to avoid doing 2. and avoid fixing 1. when it
has bugs and somehow magically get the same result as in Adobe apps through
some fontconfig miracle. It's not going to happen. Fontconfig is good, but not
that good.
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Alex <the.decryptor+bugzilla(a)gmail.com> changed:
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--- Comment #63 from Alex <the.decryptor+bugzilla(a)gmail.com> 2010-03-25 00:33:13 PDT ---
The DirectWrite backend implements this to a certain extent, although from my
quick testing it's still a bit buggy (will pick a condensed face when it should
pick an expanded face)
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Conrad Sanderson <conradsand(a)ieee.org> changed:
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CC| |conradsand(a)ieee.org
--- Comment #8 from Conrad Sanderson <conradsand(a)ieee.org> 2010-03-24 23:32:45 EDT ---
(In reply to comment #7)
See also Bug 508899, Bug 548034, Bug 561259, Bug 561318.
Some of the above bugs contain graphical examples of the problem.
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--- Comment #15 from Julian Sikorski <belegdol(a)gmail.com> 2010-03-24 12:21:48 PST ---
Reading the #18725 it seems like you were for adding heuristics or some sort of
matching tables in the past.
I understand your argument that heuristics is bound to miserably fail at some
point, but why providing a way to work around broken fonts would be bad? It
might delay fixing of fonts, but given that the spec was requested by font
authors, I would assume that the ones that cared already did their job.
Believing that all fonts will eventually be fixed is unrealistic.
Taking ACPI as an example, there are quirks provided so that laptops no longer
supported by manufacturer can suspend.
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--- Comment #14 from Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net> 2010-03-24 10:00:20 PST ---
The version of Arial Narrow that a lot of people have (the version MS allowed
to be redistributed before changing its mind) is clearly case #1. They probably
fixed later versions (or relied on their renaming heuristic to hide this fact,
reading the MS whitepaper Arrial Narrow almost certainly was one of their
primary test cases for heuristical renaming)
But anyway yes there is no good solution short of fixing fonts and apps (an
heuristic, by definition, is not a safe solution, it sort of works in most
cases and fails horribly in others). And that won't happen by complaining in
fontconfig's bugzilla. The people that write font and apps do not read it. If
you find a problem font complain at its issuer. If you find a problem app
complain at its author. fontconfig can not possibly hide 100% the fact that the
OpenType spec has changed over the years. For one thing, the changes in the
spec were done because font authors and app authors requested them. So hiding
them is punishing good apps and fonts (that use the new spec properly) to avoid
fixing bad fonts and bad apps (that try to ignore requirements changed)
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--- Comment #13 from Julian Sikorski <belegdol(a)gmail.com> 2010-03-24 03:21:15 PST ---
Or maybe there is a fixed Arial Narrow font? I just noticed that the font is
available from linotype, but I'm rather unwilling to pay 149 Swiss francs just
to check. Did anyone try to use the newer version?
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--- Comment #12 from Julian Sikorski <belegdol(a)gmail.com> 2010-03-24 03:14:17 PST ---
Is Arial Narrow case #1 then? The current behaviour is sort of confusing, and I
think it is pretty obvious now that the font is not going to get fixed. So, my
question is, are there any plans to do anything about bug #18725? It's been
almost two years...
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--- Comment #11 from Sam Liddicott <sam(a)liddicott.com> 2010-03-24 03:03:25 PST ---
I accept Nicolas's summary of the situation.
The question remaining is not whether or not fontconfig is to blame but:
1. if fontconfig can do anything to make things better (like ms did)
2. if fontconfig should do anything to make things better
or if we should just wait a few years until all the fonts and programs are
fixed
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