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[Bug 1351092] Re: Configuration of the Droid Sans Fallback font

 

I have installed fonts-droid 1:4.3-3ubuntu1.1 and language-selector-
common 0.129.3 from trusty-proposed. Droid Sans Fallback is the
preferred font in case of a Chinese locale:

$ LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 fc-match 'sans-serif'
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"

In case of a non-Chinese locale, Droid Sans Fallback is the first
Chinese font in the list:

$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 fc-match -s 'sans-serif' | head -12
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
Verdana.ttf: "Verdana" "Normal"
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Normal"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
ukai.ttc: "AR PL UKai CN" "Book"
ukai.ttc: "AR PL UKai HK" "Book"
uming.ttc: "AR PL UMing CN" "Light"

** Tags removed: verification-needed
** Tags added: verification-done

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1351092

Title:
  Configuration of the Droid Sans Fallback font

Status in “fonts-android” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “language-selector” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “fonts-android” source package in Trusty:
  Fix Committed
Status in “language-selector” source package in Trusty:
  Fix Committed
Status in “fonts-android” package in Debian:
  New

Bug description:
  [Impact]

  fontconfig configuration settings, aimed at making the Droid Sans
  Fallback font be used to render Chinese, fails sometimes in an
  unpredictable way. This seems to be caused by the file 65-droid-sans-
  fonts.conf, which is currently installed by fonts-droid. Consequently
  that file is proposed to be dropped from fonts-droid. Some fontconfig
  files in language-selector are proposed to be changed accordingly.

  Example problems:

  * One of the AR PL UMing fonts is sometimes used instead of Droid Sans
    Fallback in case of a Chinese locale.

  * Buggy rendering of Chinese contents in qt apps in case of a
    non-Chinese locale (bug #1334495).

  * Droid Sans Fallback can't be used in Ubuntu Touch (see discussion at
    bug #1346766).

  [Test Case]

  Since the behaviour is not always buggy, it's hard to present a proper
  test case. Instead I have to refer to the discussions in this bug
  report as well as the above mentioned bugs.

  [Regression Potential]

  While the fonts-droid package installs a bunch of fonts for various
  languages, only the Droid Sans Fallback font is used as part of
  Ubuntu's default font configuration. The regression risk for Chinese
  users is reasonably very low. There is a risk, though, that this
  change leads to surprise changes for individual users who make use of
  other fonts but Droid Sans Fallback. There is no indication that those
  other fonts are widely used.

  [Original description]

  There are currently several open issues related to the use of Droid
  Sans Fallback for rendering Chinese content:

  * Two mixed fonts when rendering Chinese in KDE/QT apps with Droid
    Sans fonts
    https://launchpad.net/bugs/1334495

  * Droid Sans no longer preferred font for Chinese
    https://launchpad.net/bugs/1335482

  * Chinese in Ubuntu Touch should use Heiti style sans serif font
    https://launchpad.net/bugs/1346766

  Unlike e.g. fonts-wqy-microhei, the fonts-droid package installs a
  bunch of fonts, of which only one is needed for Chinese. In an attempt
  to sort things out I have built the fonts-android source package in my
  PPA with the DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf font broken out to a separate
  binary package named fonts-droid-cjk. The PPA also includes a version
  of language-selector where the changes in version 0.129.2 have been
  reverted.

  To test it in Trusty, you should:

  * Uninstall the fonts-droid package

  * Install fonts-droid-cjk and language-selector-common from my PPA
    at https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/droid-test

  My own tests indicate that the change to language-selector due to bug
  #1335482 was a step in the wrong direction. With
  DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf as the only installed font from the Droid
  Sans family, you get rid of possible confusion that might have
  resulted in the issue reported in that bug.

  $ LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 fc-match -s 'sans-serif' | head -n 5
  DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
  uming.ttc: "AR PL UMing CN" "Light"
  uming.ttc: "AR PL UMing HK" "Light"
  ukai.ttc: "AR PL UKai CN" "Book"
  DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

  Also, if we would take this route, it might be easier to fix a
  configuration that makes Droid Sans Fallback work well with qt apps.
  (This is pure theory/hope so far.)

  Looking forward to your comments.

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