412222 - Firefox not honoring font set for a language at certain times

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Biju]

I see this....
Even if you set all your Malayalam fonts to "AnjaliOldLipi" 
at  Options > Content > Fonts > Advanced > Malayalam,
if language is not specified on a web page firefox may still use another font to display Malayalam characters.


Test step I used:-
1. Ensure you have "AnjaliOldLipi" and "Arial Unicode MS" font 
2. Ensure you have no other Malayalam font 
   (Yes, I am not having the MS default Karthika font on that PC)
3. set your default font as "AnjaliOldLipi" 
   Options > Content > Fonts > Advanced > Malayalam.
4. goto http://ml.wikipedia.org/
5. User see screen as attachment 296876 [details]
6. Check difference in Page title and the URL
7. That is URL dont use "Koottaksharam" (complex/compound letter)
   (while page looks fine with "Koottaksharam")

8. goto attachment 248276 [details]
   you see nothing on the page use "Koottaksharam", 
   tab bar also dont display "Koottaksharam"

Or in other words when there is no "Koottaksharam" it means 
firefox is using "Arial Unicode MS" instead of "AnjaliOldLipi" 
I set for Malayalam characters

Comment 1

[Praveen A]

AFAICT, this might be because it might not check what language the URL/tab title is and hence it does not specify a font for these and the OS picks the default font. The issue here is not with firefox or Arial Unicode MS. This the result of script reformation for fitting the Malayalam character set into a typewriter keyboard. So the new/reformed/typewriter script fonts does not have a koottakshram (conjunct). So if you want to use traditional script, use a font that support traditional script with all conjuncts. Why should firefox take a decision on behalf of you which script you should use? Some may still prefer the typewriter script. 

URLs and title bar are multilingual and you need a font that supports all characters.

Comment 2

[Biju]

(In reply to comment #1)
> that support traditional script with all conjuncts. Why should firefox take a
> decision on behalf of you which script you should use? Some may still prefer

I am not asking firefox to make any decision in this case.

See my step 3 
> 3. set your default font as "AnjaliOldLipi" 
I already asked firefox to use  "AnjaliOldLipi" 

Comment 3

[Praveen A]

I understood your point. What I meant was - there is no guarantee that the tab title or URL will always contain only characters that AnjaliOldLipi can provide. See it is lot more work which I think is not worth. But if someone is ready to do it, then it is great. 

Comment 4

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

I think that you didn't change the Windows UI font settings to use AnjaliOldLipi, right? The editors should prefer the system font settings, not our pref settings. However, if there are some characters which cannot be drawn with the system font, we need to fallback to another font. However, the font fallback spec of Windows is black box...

The CJK locales have same issue. However, there is a mechanism which spec is clear. See bug 362093. If the patch will be landed, you can create the virtual fonts which can be used on all applications on your system with editing your registry.

Comment 5

[Biju]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I think that you didn't change the Windows UI font settings to use
> AnjaliOldLipi, right?
I have not

> The editors should prefer the system font settings, not our pref settings. However, if there are some characters which cannot be drawn

> you can create the virtual fonts which can be used on all applications on
> your system with editing your registry.

Also please explain how to do it?

Comment 6

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

Biju, can you confirm this problem still exists in Fx 3.0?

Comment 7

[Biju]

Attachment: url_font.png

Comment 8

[Biju]

Actually this happened to me on a Win 2003 server, no longer I have Win 2003 or the "Arial Unicode MS" font, so I am unable to test it as per steps in comment 0

Alternately I have tested it in this way on Win XP

1. set your default font as "AnjaliOldLipi" 
   Options > Content > Fonts > Advanced > Malayalam.
2. goto http://ml.wikipedia.org/
3. See Malayalam letters in URL bar is almost like AnjaliOldLipi
4. now set default Malayalam font to one looks totally different
   (I used Karumbi font)
5. goto http://ml.wikipedia.org/

result:-
url bar letter are much different from setp 3
see attached url_font.png (attachment 360416 [details] )

So if nobody can test this, I assume this is WFM


Karumbi font http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Malayalam.html#Karumbi
should be available at http://varamozhi.sourceforge.net/fonts/