419001 - Firefox's default-font options shows only one member of the font family

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Matěj Cepl]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; cs-CZ; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080208 Fedora/2.0.0.12-1.fc8 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Build Identifier: Firefox 3 beta 3 -- build from the mozilla site.

Cloned from the Red Hat bugzilla bug 242243:

In the Gnome Systen->Look & Feel->Font tool, the font selection tool shows for the DejaVu fonts 2 lists labeled "Family" and "Style".  The Family "DejaVu Sans"  has styles ExtraLight, Condensed, Book, Condensed Oblique, Condensed Bold, Bold, Condensed Bold Oblique, and Bold Oblique.

However, firefox shows just one DejaVu font family and omits all different styles.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.In Font Preferences of Firefox open font selection dialog
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Different font families are ignored

Expected Results:  
Firefox should understand and somehow represent that one font family can come in different styles (Condensed, Book, etc.)

For more information and the history of this bug see the downstream bug on the URL shown above.

Comment 1

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Fonts are typically specified using font family names (e.g. Arial), not face names (Arial Bold).  Other CSS attributes like font-style, font-weight are used to determine the exact face to be used within a family.  Names like ExtraLight, Bold, Black, Book map to weight attributes, Italic and Oblique to font-style attributes.

The pref settings follow these rules, fonts are specified by their font family name and the specific face is determine by other CSS style attributes associated with elements on the page.

Unless I'm missing something here, this behavior is as intended.

Note: font width is not a supported attribute by CSS2 but it is supported by the draft CSS3 Fonts spec, so it's not currently possible to specify a condensed or expanded width font using CSS attributes unless that family is separated from the normal width faces.  But since DejaVu Sans Condensed is a separate family, that's not a problem here.

Comment 2

[Matěj Cepl]

bug 421317 is a variant of this bug for Thunderbird

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.