1947350 - Reader View does not use my Font Choice

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Reader Mode, defect)

Description

[mozilla.7f1cv]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:135.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/135.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Use reader view on web page
2. Select 'Text and layout' from the left-hand menu
3. Under 'Font', select 'Serif'
4. Experience disappointment

Actual results:

Displaying the web page in Reader View with a Sans-Serif font.

Expected results:

Displaying the web page in Reader View with a Serif font.

Comment 1

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

I'm not able to reproduce this on macOS Catalina - I get the Times font selected when choosing "Serif".

Hey tmaity, does QA have any macOS 10.15 machines around that we could try to reproduce this on?

Comment 2

[Tania Maity (:tmaity)]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) from comment #1)

I'm not able to reproduce this on macOS Catalina - I get the Times font selected when choosing "Serif".

Hey tmaity, does QA have any macOS 10.15 machines around that we could try to reproduce this on?

Hi Mike, According to our list of devices, we do have machines with macOS 10.15. We will assign one once the RO team is back in the office tomorrow morning.

Comment 3

[Mihai Boldan, Desktop QA [:mboldan]]

Attachment: Serif vs sans-serif.jpg

I managed to investigate on macOS 10.15, on Firefox 137.0a1, Firefox 136.0b8, Firefox 135.0.1 and on Firefox 135.0 and I was not able to reproduce the issue. See the attached screenshot. Please let me know if we can help further with the investigation.

Comment 4

[mozilla.7f1cv]

Screenie vid: https://youtu.be/NlPch5RR6wQ

Comment 5

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hey jfkthame, any idea how what mozilla.7f1cv is experiencing would be possible? Like, do you know if it's possible that somehow macOS has remapped the Times font to a sans-serif font instead?

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

This would happen if the serif generic font for Latin script has been set to a sans-serif font (it looks like Helvetica in this case), which might for example happen as a result of trying to use the Preferences window to set Helvetica as the browser's default, without realising that internally, this is actually configuring the serif generic. (That font prefs UI is really confusing, I think! Some day I hope we'll redesign it entirely...)

@mozilla.7f1cv: I suggest you open the Preferences and go to the Language and Appearance section of the General panel; then under the Fonts heading, click the Advanced… button. This will open the font configuration dialog where you can see the separate font settings for serif, sans-serif, and monospace for various writing systems, as well as a popup to choose whether the default proportional font should be serif or sans-serif. Check these settings for the Latin script: are they all at their "Default" value?

Comment 7

[:Gijs (he/him)]

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

@mozilla.7f1cv: I suggest you open the Preferences and go to the Language and Appearance section of the General panel; then under the Fonts heading, click the Advanced… button. This will open the font configuration dialog where you can see the separate font settings for serif, sans-serif, and monospace for various writing systems, as well as a popup to choose whether the default proportional font should be serif or sans-serif. Check these settings for the Latin script: are they all at their "Default" value?

Requesting needinfo for this. :-)

Comment 8

[Jared Hirsch [:jhirsch] (he/him) (Needinfo please)]

actually I'll wait to set severity and give the reporter some more time to respond...

Comment 9

[mozilla.7f1cv]

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

This would happen if the serif generic font for Latin script has been set to a sans-serif font (it looks like Helvetica in this case), which might for example happen as a result of trying to use the Preferences window to set Helvetica as the browser's default, without realising that internally, this is actually configuring the serif generic. (That font prefs UI is really confusing, I think! Some day I hope we'll redesign it entirely...)

@mozilla.7f1cv: I suggest you open the Preferences and go to the Language and Appearance section of the General panel; then under the Fonts heading, click the Advanced… button. This will open the font configuration dialog where you can see the separate font settings for serif, sans-serif, and monospace for various writing systems, as well as a popup to choose whether the default proportional font should be serif or sans-serif. Check these settings for the Latin script: are they all at their "Default" value?

This appears to have been the problem.

I definitely didn't set it that way, and I agree, the dialog is counterintuitive.

Thanks Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame] and everyone else for your help.

Elbows-up and best of luck to you!

Comment 10

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Glad it's working!