354562 - The "Proportional: [Serif / Sans Serif]" option is ignored

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Seungbeom Kim]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird version 1.5.0.7 (20060909)

Under the "Variable width font" setting for plain text messages,
sans-serif font is always used, regardless of the "Proportional" font option.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose "Variable width font" for Plain Text Messages.
2. Choose different fonts for "Serif" and "Sans-serif" (e.g. Georgia and Arial).
3. Observe the message pane.
(optional below)
4. Exchange the fonts for "Serif" and "Sans-serif" you chose in step 2.
5. Observe the message pane.
Actual Results:  
The sans-serif font is always used, whether you choose "Proportional: Serif" or "Proportional: Sans Serif", and regardless of the font choices for each.

Expected Results:  
When you choose "Proportional: Serif", the serif font should be used.

Comment 1

[Allan Jacobs]

I could not reproduce this bug and I have a hypothesis that might explain
what the submitter is seeing.

Tools->Options
In the Options dialog, click on the Display icon.
Choose the Formatting tab.
Make sure that "Fixed width font" is selected.
Click on the Fonts tab.
Click on the Fonts... button
Proportional: Serif
Serif: Times New Roman
Compose an E-mail with ruler text and save it as a draft.  Content:
llllllllllMMMMMMMMMMllllllllllMMMMMMMMMMllllllllllMMMMMMMMMMllllllllllMMMMMMMMMM
0       90        90        90        90        90        90        90 
Tools->Options
In the Options dialog, click on the Display icon.
Choose the Formatting tab.
Make sure that "Variable width font" is selected.
View the draft E-mail -- nothing will have changed.
Exit Thunderbird.
Start up Thunderbird.    Note that if your setup uses a Fixed width font
then toggling the Proportional font between Serif and Sans Serif will have
no effect.  Even if you have chosen to use a Variable width font, that setting
will not take effect until after restarting Thunderbird. It is likely that the
submitter was using a fixed width font and was not aware of it.
View the draft E-mail.  The view will display using a variable width font.
Click on the Fonts tab.
Click on the Fonts... button
Proportional: Serif
Dismiss the Options pane.  The font will change to Proportional:Serif.
Click on the Fonts tab.
Click on the Fonts... button
Proportional: Sans Serif
Dismiss the Options pane.  The font will change to Proportional:Sans Serif.

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I'm not sure reporter has correctly identified the issue.  When setting the Variable Width for Plain Text Message display, there is no indication whether Serif or Sans will be used.

In Step 2, he states he "exchanges the fonts".  Presumably, this occurs in the
  Tools|Options|Display|Fonts|Fonts...   dialog.

In that dialog, it's important to note the dropdown at the top of the dialog: when you make a selection, that selection is *only* applied to text using an encoding in that group.  If the dropdown reads "Western", the selected font will be used for ISO-8859-1, Latin-1, Windows-1252, ASCII and related encodings.  If you change only for Western, the fonts used for other language groups won't be affected.

Comment 3

[Seungbeom Kim]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I'm not sure reporter has correctly identified the issue.  When setting the
> Variable Width for Plain Text Message display, there is no indication whether
> Serif or Sans will be used.

I'm not sure if I understood this; what kind of indication do you need,
other than what you specify in the drop-down box?

> In Step 2, he states he "exchanges the fonts".  Presumably, this occurs in the
>   Tools|Options|Display|Fonts|Fonts...   dialog.

Yes. And what I meant was to use for Serif what you used for Sans-serif, and vice versa. Just to see that the behaviour always follows what you *actually* specified in Sans Serif, not a predefined one. (That is, if you exchange the two fonts, what you see in the message pane will change.)

> In that dialog, it's important to note the dropdown at the top of the dialog:
> when you make a selection, that selection is *only* applied to text using an
> encoding in that group.  If the dropdown reads "Western", the selected font
> will be used for ISO-8859-1, Latin-1, Windows-1252, ASCII and related
> encodings.  If you change only for Western, the fonts used for other language
> groups won't be affected.

Yes, I was aware of that. I was always testing with the dropdown showing "Western" and in a newsgroup whose Default Character Encoding specified as "Western (ISO-8859-1)", so there should be no problem with the "Fonts for:" setting.

Comment 4

[Seungbeom Kim]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I could not reproduce this bug and I have a hypothesis that might explain
> what the submitter is seeing.

Sorry, but trying it on my computer does not solve the problem.

> Note that if your setup uses a Fixed width font
> then toggling the Proportional font between Serif and Sans Serif will have
> no effect.

Of course, I was aware of that.

> Even if you have chosen to use a Variable width font, that setting
> will not take effect until after restarting Thunderbird. It is likely that the
> submitter was using a fixed width font and was not aware of it.

That was not the case, and you don't seem to know that all you need to do to see the change take place is just to highlight another message (without restarting Thunderbird).

By the way, having to do even that deserves to be a bug, because the change happens instantly (as you exit the Options dialog) when you change something in the Fonts dialog; i.e. changing between Variable/Proportional doesn't refresh the message pane, when something similar already does. (Is there a bug report filed for this?)

Comment 5

[Seungbeom Kim]

I found out that the problem I described happens when "Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Regional Options > Standards and formats" (a.k.a. the user locale) is set to "Korean", but not when it's set to "English (United States)".

Is this behaviour by design? I don't think so, and I believe it shouldn't. Each message specifies its own encoding, and when it doesn't, each message folder has its own Default Character Encoding setting. The user locale simply has no place to play here.

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > I'm not sure reporter has correctly identified the issue.  When setting the
> > Variable Width for Plain Text Message display, there is no indication
> > whether Serif or Sans will be used.
> 
> I'm not sure if I understood this; what kind of indication do you need,
> other than what you specify in the drop-down box?

I mean:  Tools | Options | Display | Formatting,
   "Use the following font"
does not indicate "serif" vs "sans serif"; it only indicates "fixed" vs. "serif".  However, I didn't look closely enough at the Fonts dialog, and had missed that there's a "Proportional" dropdown there to change between Sans and Serif as the default font.  My mistake, sorry.


> > If you change only for Western, the fonts used for other language
> > groups won't be affected.
> 
> Yes, I was aware of that. I was always testing with the dropdown showing
> "Western" and in a newsgroup whose Default Character Encoding specified as
> "Western (ISO-8859-1)", so there should be no problem with the "Fonts for:"
> setting.

Default Encoding for the newsgroup doesn't necessarily override the message's own encoding (but there is a checkbox in the folder's Properites to force such an override -- not recommended).  Did you check the encoding of the particular message?


(In reply to comment #5)
> I found out that the problem I described happens when ... the
> user locale is set to "Korean", but not when it's set to "English (United
> States)".
> 
> Is this behaviour by design? I don't think so, and I believe it shouldn't.

I doubt it's by design.  I'm unwilling to change the locale settings on my Windows box, tho, so I'm not going to be able to verify the symptom.

Do you see similar behavior with Firefox?  In Fx 1.5.0.7, Tools | Options | Content, the "Default Font" is vaguely tied to the Proportional setting on the Fonts dialog.  I haven't tried making a change directly from the Default dropdown, and doing so may affect the other symptom, but I see this:
*  Go to the Options | Content Panel; check the current 'default font'
*  Click Advanced.  Check that the fonts selected for Serif and Sans are different.  If "Proportional" reads Serif, the selected Serif font should match the default font, or likewise for Sans.
*  Change the "Proportional" dropdown.  OK the dialog.
*  Note that 'default font' is unchanged.  (bug)
*  Close Options dialog; reopen it.  Now see that 'default font' has changed.

Ignoring the bug mentioned, the proportional/serif change in Firefox has a directly observable effect.  So the question for you is: can you reproduce what I just described on your system in an English locale; and then, is the behavior the same or different in the Korean locale?

See bug 306270, bug 317747, bug 326330.

Comment 7

[Seungbeom Kim]

(In reply to comment #6)
> 
> Default Encoding for the newsgroup doesn't necessarily override the message's
> own encoding (but there is a checkbox in the folder's Properites to force such
> an override -- not recommended).  Did you check the encoding of the particular
> message?

Oh, I forgot to explain why I even mentioned the Default Encoding - the individual messages in the newsgroup don't have Content-Type headers at all.

Of course, the problem I described also happens with "normal" messages that have "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1".

> Do you see similar behavior with Firefox? [...]
> 
> Ignoring the bug mentioned, the proportional/serif change in Firefox has a
> directly observable effect.  So the question for you is: can you reproduce what
> I just described on your system in an English locale; and then, is the behavior
> the same or different in the Korean locale?

I don't see how that's relevant to this bug, when Firefox provides no way to view plain text messages in proportional font. Other than that, I could reproduce what you described on both locales.

(By the way, changing the user locale is very easy, and doesn't require a reboot; it's just that only those processes that started after the change are affected.)

Comment 8

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does this still occur with the latest supported 2.0.0.x / Shredder trunk nightlies?

(1.5.0.x is now end-of-life and the latest supported 2.0.0.x is 2.0.0.17)

Comment 9

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESO INCO per lack of response to last question. If you feel this change was made in error, please respond to this bug with your reasons why.