1180560 - enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Graphics: Text, defect)

Description

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

The use of the new fontconfig platform fontlist code is currently behind a pref that is only enabled for nightly/dev builds but not for beta/release builds. Until we switch to this code, we cannot enable 'unicode-range' across all platforms.

Comment 1

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Attachment: patch, enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

Once the patches on bug 1224965 land, we should be okay to enable fontconfig platform fontlist on release builds.

Comment 2

[Karl Tomlinson (:karlt)]

Comment on attachment 8689289 [details] [diff] [review]
patch, enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

>-#ifdef RELEASE_BUILD
>-pref("gfx.font_rendering.fontconfig.fontlist.enabled", false);
>-#else
> pref("gfx.font_rendering.fontconfig.fontlist.enabled", true);
> #endif

Need to remove the balancing #endif.

Cameron has been reviewing some of this code, so asking whether he's happy that what he has seen is ready.

Comment 3

[Cameron McCormack (:heycam)]

Comment on attachment 8689289 [details] [diff] [review]
patch, enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

Review of attachment 8689289 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, I think it's ready to to let this ride to Beta.  If any more weird distro font configurations are out there they probably won't be noticed until we get this to more users.

Comment 4

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Karl, thanks for all your help with this work!

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/08a4d2e0ad79

Comment 6

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/08a4d2e0ad79

Comment 7

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Comment on attachment 8689289 [details] [diff] [review]
patch, enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

Approval Request Comment
[Feature/regressing bug #]: This bug blocks enabling unicode-range for beta/release builds. Enabling the new fontconfig back end will allow us to release unicode-range support across all platforms (bug 1119062).
[User impact if declined]: unicode-range support can't be enabled until FF45
[Describe test coverage new/current, TreeHerder]: landed on trunk last week, no issues reported
[Risks and why]: new fontconfig font backend has been enabled for nightly/aurora for several release cycles now and all known regressions have been resolved
[String/UUID change made/needed]: none

Comment 8

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Comment on attachment 8689289 [details] [diff] [review]
patch, enable fontconfig platform fontlist for release builds

Aurora44+

Comment 9

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Jtd, should we add this to 44 release notes?

Comment 10

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to Ritu Kothari (:ritu) from comment #9)
> Jtd, should we add this to 44 release notes?

Yes, that would be a good idea!

Comment 11

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Pushed to aurora:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/f6ecc28fba3d

Comment 12

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-b2g44_v2_5/rev/f6ecc28fba3d

Comment 13

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

(In reply to John Daggett (:jtd) from comment #10)
> (In reply to Ritu Kothari (:ritu) from comment #9)
> > Jtd, should we add this to 44 release notes?
> 
> Yes, that would be a good idea!

In that case, would you be able to provide suggested wording? Are there any blogs/links that the relnote should include? If you can set relnote-firefox tracking flag to "?" and fill out the template, that would be extremely helpful. Thanks.

Comment 14

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: font matching under Linux has changed

[Suggested wording]: To support the unicode-range descriptor for webfonts, font matching under Linux now uses the same font matching code shared with other platforms. On Linux, this code uses fontconfig for platform font family lookups so font substitutions will still work. But in some cases complex font substitution rules may no longer work as they did before. Please file a bug if you run into a problem with Firefox not respecting a given fontconfig configuration.

[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1056479

Comment 15

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Suggested wording from comment 14 trimmed down to one sentence (release notes need to be short) and added to Beta44 release notes.

"To support unicode-range descriptor for webfonts, font matching under Linux uses the same font matching code as other platforms."

Comment 16

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to Ritu Kothari (:ritu) from comment #15)
> Suggested wording from comment 14 trimmed down to one sentence (release
> notes need to be short) and added to Beta44 release notes.
> 
> "To support unicode-range descriptor for webfonts, font matching under Linux
> uses the same font matching code as other platforms."

Ok, sounds good!

Comment 17

[Xidorn Quan [:xidorn] UTC+10]

FWIW, I just got a report from a friend that this change makes his Firefox fail to pick the proper Chinese serif font on Linux. He also mentioned that he had rather complicated fontconfig setting, so he had no idea whether there was any combination of his config causes this. [1]

[1] https://twitter.com/hexcles/status/692118226982010881 (Chinese)

Comment 18

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to Xidorn Quan [:xidorn] (UTC+10) from comment #17)
> FWIW, I just got a report from a friend that this change makes his Firefox
> fail to pick the proper Chinese serif font on Linux. He also mentioned that
> he had rather complicated fontconfig setting, so he had no idea whether
> there was any combination of his config causes this. [1]
> 
> [1] https://twitter.com/hexcles/status/692118226982010881 (Chinese)

Thanks for forwarding this but could you file a new bug and attach details? It would be helpful to have a copy of whatever fontconfig settings the user has. I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard to work around but it depends upon how complex the logic they're using in their fontconfig settings.

Comment 19

[Robert Ma [:Hexcles]]

Thanks :xidorn and :jtd.

I've filed BUG 1243226 for this issue.