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[Bug 161058] [NEW] some ~/.fonts.conf settings do no override desktop-wide gnome settings (hinting style)

 

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I didn't fill out the package field, since this seems to be an
interaction between multiple packages (gnome-setting-daemon, libgtk,
libcairo, pango/cairo).

In the 'Appearance' control app, under the font settings, I like to use
'Subpixel' and 'Full' hinting by default, since this looks good for most
bundled fonts.

However, there is occasionally a font (especially in the msttcorefonts
package) that doesn't look good with these settings. So I want to
override their rendering settings using .fonts.conf. My main tactic is
to usually turn on the autohinter in 'hintslight' mode for certain
fonts. Lets take Times new Roman as an example.. the .fonts.conf
incantation to do this would be:

 <match target="font">
         <test name="family" qual="any"> 
                 <string>Times New Roman</string>
         </test>
    <edit name="autohint"> <bool>true</bool></edit>
    <edit name="hinting"> <bool>true</bool></edit>
    <edit name="hintstyle" > <const>hintslight</const> </edit>
 </match>

The odd thing about this is that the 'autohint' and 'hinting' edits seem
to work, but the 'hintstyle' edit is always overridden by the control
applet's settings. I can verify this by launching gedit each time after
tweaking these settings.

"fc-match -v 'Times New Roman'" does return the right settings, so its
something in the chain of gtk libraries that is messing it up.

Interstingly, it's not all possible edit settings that are ignored. It
seems to only be hintstyle. For example if I were to say:


 <match target="font">
         <test name="family" qual="any"> 
                 <string>Times New Roman</string>
         </test>
    <edit name="antialias"> <bool> false </bool> </edit>
 </match>

Then this works correctly. Only Times New Roman will be non-antialiased even in gedit. Even setting "hinting" to "false" works.. its only the hintstyle setting that doesn't work.
[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge [8086:7190] (rev 01)
    	Subsystem: VMware Inc Device [15ad:1976]
00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VMware Inc Abstract SVGA II Adapter [15ad:0405]
    	Subsystem: VMware Inc Abstract SVGA II Adapter [15ad:0405]

** Affects: cairo
     Importance: Medium
         Status: New

** Affects: cairo (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Confirmed

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some ~/.fonts.conf settings do no override desktop-wide gnome settings (hinting style)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/161058
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