1770662 - Firefox/Thunderbird see the default font correctly, but use another font

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Layout: Text and Fonts, defect)

Description

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:100.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/100.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. I use Firefox/Thunderbird in 'fa' locale
2. I open a website in Firefox which the title is in Persian. Or receive an email with Persian subject which can be seen in Thunderbird list of email subjects.
3. Both Firefox & Thunderbird, correctly see my defualt font for Arabic as "Default (Vazirmatn)".
4. Then, I change the selected font from "Default (Vazirmatn)" to "Vazirmatn".

Actual results:

In step 3, while both see "Vazirmatn" as the default suitable font, and correctly show "Default(Vazirmatn)", they use "Noto Sans Arabic" font in Firefox titlebar and Thunderbird email subject list (or thunderbird account name if it is in Persian).

But when I change "Defalt(Vazirmatn)" to "Vazirmatn", both start to actually use "Vazirmatn" font.

Expected results:

As they correctly see "Vazirmatn" as the default font, there should be no difference between selecting "Vazirmatn" and "Default (Vazirmatn)"; and both of them should use "Vazirmatn" font. But this is not what happens.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:dholbert, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 2

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Thanks for the bug report.

I have a few questions/requests; if you wouldn't mind responding to them, that'll help ensure we understand what's going on & can do our best to reproduce/investigate. Thanks in advance!

Also: if you could attach before/after screenshots to demonstrate the difference (and show the UI where you're toggling the difference in your STR step 4), that would help out a lot here, too. See the "Attach New File" button in the Attachments section just above your first comment here.

2. I open a website in Firefox which the title is in Persian.

I'm going to attach a trivial testcase with a <title> in Persian.

Could you confirm that this issue reproduces with that testcase? Then we can be sure we're working with known-affected testcase (or if the testcase is unaffected, we can dig further to be sure we're looking at content that is actually affected).

3. Both Firefox & Thunderbird, correctly see my defualt font for Arabic as "Default (Vazirmatn)".

Is this https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Vazirmatn ? (obtainable via e.g. using the "Download Family" button there, and installing the Vazirmatn-VariableFont_wght.ttf file inside the zip?)

When you mention Firefox and Thunderbird seeing that font as your default, I assume you're talking about in Firefox/Thunderbird preferences "Advanced..." button in the fonts section? (And which dropdown are you focusing on there -- Proportional/Serif/Sans-Serif/Monospace, or all of them?)

Also, what tool are you using to set that font as your system default for Arabic? (What are you doing to get it to show up as "Default (...)" in Firefox?)

4. Then, I change the selected font from "Default (Vazirmatn)" to "Vazirmatn".

This is still talking about the dropdown menus in Firefox/Thunderbird "Advanced..." font preferences, right?

Assuming so: which of the 4 dropdowns are you using to make this change? (Are you doing it for all 4 of them?) Just want to be sure we're matching your steps when attempting to reproduce.

Comment 3

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: testcase 1, "hello world" (would be nice to confirm that this reproduces the issue)

Comment 4

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #2)

Thanks for the bug report.

Thank you for your attention!

I have a few questions/requests; if you wouldn't mind responding to them, that'll help ensure we understand what's going on & can do our best to reproduce/investigate. Thanks in advance!

Sure

Also: if you could attach before/after screenshots to demonstrate the difference (and show the UI where you're toggling the difference in your STR step 4), that would help out a lot here, too. See the "Attach New File" button in the Attachments section just above your first comment here.

Yeah, I will.

I'm going to attach a trivial testcase with a <title> in Persian.

Could you confirm that this issue reproduces with that testcase? Then we can be sure we're working with known-affected testcase (or if the testcase is unaffected, we can dig further to be sure we're looking at content that is actually affected).

Yes, it does.

Is this https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Vazirmatn ? (obtainable via e.g. using the "Download Family" button there, and installing the Vazirmatn-VariableFont_wght.ttf file inside the zip?)

Yes, it is the same font. Although, to be more exact, I use the one downloaded from its 32.102 release in github (https://github.com/rastikerdar/vazirmatn/releases/download/v32.102/vazirmatn-v32.102.zip), the main variable version named Vazirmatn[wght].ttf.

To be even more exact, I use the package I've created for Fedora, which includes accompanying fontconfig rule: https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org//packages/vazirmatn-fonts/32.102/1.fc36/noarch/vazirmatn-vf-fonts-32.102-1.fc36.noarch.rpm

When you mention Firefox and Thunderbird seeing that font as your default, I assume you're talking about in Firefox/Thunderbird preferences "Advanced..." button in the fonts section? (And which dropdown are you focusing on there -- Proportional/Serif/Sans-Serif/Monospace, or all of them?)

No, I don't open the Advanced.. window. I just change the "Default font" which is at the left of the "Advanced..." button. Which changes the Sans-Serif setting as far as I can see.

Also, what tool are you using to set that font as your system default for Arabic? (What are you doing to get it to show up as "Default (...)" in Firefox?)

It is actually Persian not Arabic; and I use the fontconfig file given in the above package, which can be found here as well: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/vazirmatn-fonts/blob/rawhide/f/56-vazirmatn-fonts.conf

4. Then, I change the selected font from "Default (Vazirmatn)" to "Vazirmatn".

This is still talking about the dropdown menus in Firefox/Thunderbird "Advanced..." font preferences, right?

Assuming so: which of the 4 dropdowns are you using to make this change? (Are you doing it for all 4 of them?) Just want to be sure we're matching your steps when attempting to reproduce.

No, this is still about the dropdown menu beside the "Advanced..." button in font preferences section.

Comment 5

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

(In reply to Hedayat Vatankhah from comment #4)

When you mention Firefox and Thunderbird seeing that font as your default, I assume you're talking about in Firefox/Thunderbird preferences "Advanced..." button in the fonts section? (And which dropdown are you focusing on there -- Proportional/Serif/Sans-Serif/Monospace, or all of them?)

No, I don't open the Advanced.. window. I just change the "Default font" which is at the left of the "Advanced..." button. Which changes the Sans-Serif setting as far as I can see.

I suspect this is the problem. The Font settings are a bit confusing (in my opinion), but the important point is that font preferences (for each of the "generic" settings serif / sans-serif / monospace) are set separately for different scripts/writing systems. When you just change the "Default font" shown in the main Preferences window, you are most likely changing it for the Latin script, but this will not affect the setting for Persian (or Arabic) script.

If you click the "Advanced..." button, you'll get an additional dialog where you can choose which script you want to configure, and set the font preferences for each of the generic names. Use this to set your preferred sans-serif font for the Arabic script, and I think that will probably work.

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

Hmm, I may have misunderstood what this is about, actually. Re-reading things, it sounds like the issue here is about the font used for UI elements like the tab title or the Thunderbird email list, not the default font used for web content. If that's right, comment 5 may not really be relevant. Those elements are (I think) styled with the system-ui font family, and so this may be an issue with how system-ui is handled.

Comment 7

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

Attachment: The setting drop-down I use

Comment 8

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

Attachment: When "Default (Vazirmatn)" is selected

Notice the title text when "Default(Vazirmatn)" is selected. It is actually using "Noto Sans Arabic" font.

Comment 9

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

Attachment: When "Vazirmatn" is selected

Result when "Vazirmatn" font is selected; now the title is using Vazirmatn font in addition to the page contents.

Comment 10

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

(In reply to Jonathan Kew (:jfkthame) from comment #6)

Hmm, I may have misunderstood what this is about, actually. Re-reading things, it sounds like the issue here is about the font used for UI elements like the tab title or the Thunderbird email list, not the default font used for web content. If that's right, comment 5 may not really be relevant. Those elements are (I think) styled with the system-ui font family, and so this may be an issue with how system-ui is handled.

Yes, it is about system-ui rather than web content.