154131 - Problems with caret placement (mismatches), font display, overlapping text (font measuring problem)

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: GFX, defect)

Description

[Ann Dupuis]

I'm seeing character overlap in displayed mail messages (especially
those including bolded words and/or links). (This may be related to a bug in the
browser: I'm seeing similar overlapping there, although not precisely under the
same conditions as other bugs reported for the browser.)

The real problem occurs in message composition, though. As I type toward the end
of a line (before automatic word wrap occurs), the cursor position and character
display lags behind the actual characters I've typed.

For example, when I type the following line:

The further in a given line one goes, the greater the "drift. " 

when I reach the end of the line (having typed through to the closing quotation
mark), this is what's displayed:

The further in a given line one goes, the greater the "drift

Although I've typed the period and quotation, they don't appear yet (although
they will if I hide the message window behind another window and then bring it
to the forefront again). The cursor insertion bar appears to be between the "f"
and the "t." Hitting the delete key twice moves the insertion bar back two
characters (between  the "r" and "I") but doesn't appear to erase anything. (It
has actually erased the quote mark and period, though.)

I also occasionally see incorrect kerning of the characters (especially
characters "squished together," and sometimes characters that are spaced too far
from the word they belong to so that they look like they belong to the next or
previous word). Haven't noticed a pattern in that, though.

General Font settings:
Western
Proportional: Serif, Size 16
Serif: Times
Sans-serif: Helvetica
Cursive: Zapf Chancery
Fantasy: Post Antiqua BE Regular
Monospace: Geneva, Size 13
Minimum font size: 8

Message Display settings:

Same effect whether set to "fixed width font" or "variable width font" for plain
text messages.

Kept defaults for other settings:

Style: Regular, Size Regular, Color default color
Wrap to fit window width
Display emoticons as graphics
Character coding: Western (ISO-8859-1)

Display resolution: 96 dpi or 72 dpi, no difference (overlap of bold and linked
text in displayed message /may/ be lessened at 72 dpi but is still present)


Hardware/Software:

Mozilla 1.0 (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.0)
Gecko/20020529)

Mac OS 9.0.4

Font utilities installed: 
ATM 4.6.1 (not ATM deluxe)
Font Reserve Browser 2.6 (PPC)
Action WYSIWYG 1.0.2

Comment 1

[Greg K.]

Ann, you could be experiencing bug 148399, which was fixed on June 14. Please try a recent nightly 
build and let us know if the problem is there or not.

Comment 2

[Ann Dupuis]

Attachment: Screenshot of browser showing hyperlinked text overlapping non linked text

This is a screenshot of the Mozilla browser window showing the overlapping text
(linked text is displayed larger than surrounding text, causing overlaps).

This is with the latest nightly build, 2002080208 -- all other system
information remains as I first reported.

Comment 3

[Ann Dupuis]

Attachment: Screenshot of messenger window showing bad cursor tracking

This is a screenshot of my "compose message" window, showing two effects of the
overlapping text/non-tracking cursor problem.

The first line shows how backspacing does not adequately erase text that has
been entered.

The last line shows two things: positioning of the cursor to the left of the
actual end of the line, and "missing" text at the end (I'd actually finished
the sentence with several further characters past what's shown on the screen).

Typing here in the text field for the bug submission page is a challenge, as
I'm having to do so by "feel (right now the cursor is several characters to the
left of what I'm typing, and until I experieinced text wrap I wasn't seeing the
last several characters. Now they're appearing ahead of the cursor but at least
I can see them!

there's another clue, though, after text wrap the display of the text catches
up to reality (even if the cursor doesn't).

Comment 4

[Ann Dupuis]

Okay, I downloaded the latest nightly build, installed it, and tried it out --
same effects.

I've added some screenshots that may help.

Comment 5

[Greg K.]

The second screenshot looks a bit like the one I recently attached to bug 115522.

Comment 6

[Ninoschka Baca]

I experienced a similar problem when receiving a message from Jeesun where all
the text appeared bold. After replying to her message I noticed the cursor not
keeping up with the characters I typed. She was using Mac OS X and a Japanese
Locale. When replying I was with using Mac 9.1 or Mac 10.1.3.

Setting this bug to New because I have seen the problem. 

Comment 7

[Jeesun Cho]

There was some confusion. Sorry, Ninoschka, I should have given you more detail.
In fact:
1. I composed a mail on EN windows XP with JA system locale and  the mail
charset was set to ISO-2022-JP in compose window (this is my default). 
2. She saw this problem on her Mac machine when she was trying to reply me. 
3. I sent her another mail, but this time, I used ISO-8859-1 charset.
4. She didn't see the problem then.

I was trying to reproduce the problem by sending a mail to myself from EN
windows XP with JA locale and open it from Mac OSX with JA system locale. I fail
to see the problem though.

Comment 8

[Kathleen :Brade]

this is a font measuring bug; this doesn't belong in mail news

Comment 9

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

-> dcone

Comment 10

[Corentin BARON]

Attachment: Maybe the same bug, worst than ever !!!

I'm not sure, but this seems quite the same problem, in worst (the 'thing' at
the bottom appeared for the first time today). Screenshot realized with 1.1.
Still on 1.2b.

Comment 11

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

This bug is targeted at a Mac classic platform/OS, which is no longer supported
by mozilla.org. Please re-target it to another platform/OS if this bug applies
there as well or resolve this bug.

I will resolve this bug as WONTFIX in four weeks if no action has been taken.
To filter this and similar messages out, please filter for "mac_cla_reorg".

Comment 12

[Kathleen :Brade]

There are several mac bugs that are filed on this issue.  I'm not sure if they
are the same bug or related.  I don't think they are specific to OS9 since I
believe I've seen this sort of problem on OSX and comment 6 confirms this.

--> All

Comment 13

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

This bug hasen't been touched for years and is clearly unowned. Moving back to default assignee/QA so that people, who are watching those can accurately triage this bug.

Also resetting Priority, Target Milestone, Status Whiteboard and Status.