Closed Bug 366395 Opened 18 years ago Closed 15 years ago

large brackets built from unicode glyphs do not display

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

People

(Reporter: gregg, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

(Keywords: platform-parity, regression, Whiteboard: [CLOSEME 2010-11-01])

Attachments

(2 files)

Testcase
860 bytes, text/html
Details
Table of 63xxx codes and the recommended replacements
3.70 KB, text/html
Details
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1 We have maths quiz software that generates HTML. Frequently, large round or square brackets are needed. These are built from unicode glyphs. The thing is in early version of Mozilla such large brackets displayed just fine, but the more recent versions of Firefox just display question marks. Here is a code fragments with large round brackets: <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"> = f </td><td class="cl" align="left">&#63723;<br>&#63725; </td><td align="center" nowrap="nowrap"> g(x)</td><td class="cl" align="left">&#63734;<br>&#63736; </td><td align="center" nowrap="nowrap"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td><td width="50%"></td></tr> <tr><td width="50%"></td><td colspan="1" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"> </td></tr></tbody></table> The glyphs with entities #63xxx for various values of x appear to be unknown to Firefox. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Set the Character Encoding to Western (ISO-8859-1) 2. Put the code fragment above inside (where the dots are) <html><body>...</body></html> 3. It's supposed to render as: = f( g(x) ) where the outer brackets are large ones. Actual Results: The latest Firefox renders both large brackets as question marks. An early version of Mozilla: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020605, build 20020605 1 displays both brackets fine, whereas a later version rv: 1.7.8 for Linux displays the opening large bracket fine but prints some strange screwed up mess for the closing bracket. All more recent versions of Firefox simply display question marks. Expected Results: I hoped for large brackets.
Attached file Testcase —
That example uses codepoints from the Unicode Private Use Area, which are never guaranteed to produce the expected results. Even if you specify a font, you can't be sure that users have the font. It would be much better to use defined Unicode characters as in the second example in this testcase. http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/miscellaneous_technical.html is a handy reference for these characters.
Thanks for your reply Simon. The link you provided led me Unicode Technical Report #25 in particular, its section on Symbol pieces: <a href="http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr25/#_Toc213">http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr25/#_Toc213</a> The attached table lists all the glyphs that I'm having trouble with, and the translations I obtained from TR25. I tried viewing the table with the old browsers on my home PC, namely, Mozilla, Netscape and Galeon ... all rendered most of the 63xxx encoded glyphs but none of the TR25 encodings. All of these browsers seem to be based on Gecko/20020605. When I tried the relatively newer Mozilla 1.7.8 on my Linux machine at work it supported many of the 63xxx encodings and most of the TR25 encodings. However, I find that the latest Firefox, details given in the original email supports neither the 63xxx encodings nor the the TR25 encodings. I have it set for UTF-8 and Westeren European as per usual. Do I need to install extra fonts? ... or am I doing something else wrong?
(In reply to comment #3) It seems like you're comparing different versions of gecko-family browsers on different computers, which makes it rather difficult to diagnose your issue. > However, I find that the latest Firefox, details given in the original email > supports neither the > 63xxx encodings nor the the TR25 encodings. I have it set for UTF-8 and > Westeren European as per usual. Do I need to install extra fonts? Probably, different computers of yours have different fonts installed and that is likely to be causing the difference you've been observing. Btw, what do you get when you type 'about:buildconfig' in the address bar of the latest firefox (is it 2.0.x you tried?) that has the problem?
Sorry for the delay in reply. The reason for giving multiple versions of firefox /mozilla on multiple computers is that the glyphs we are trying to access are used by online quiz software for quizzes that a couple of thousand students access. Many students access the quizzes from their home PCs. Others access them from university PCs. We use the software at two different universities - for one university the predominant operating system is Windows, and the newest version of Firefox I gave details about was for Windows. I'll give the 'about:buildconfig' for that version tomorrow, as well as the details for the Firefox on the PCs most used by students at that university. At the other university, our personal PCs predominantly have recent Linux installations. The prior installation had similar problems with the glyphs, but the newly installed ubuntu Linux has Firefox 2.0 with the 'about:buildconfig' below and I've just discovered that there are *no* problems at all with the 63xxx encodings, and just a few missing TR25 encodings. However the students generally access the quizzes from our computer lab where again the Firefox is on Windows PCs. I'll have to find out the precise version details. Anyway, if I can get to the bottom of why some versions of firefox don't appear to have the required fonts, and can give students some easy instructions to fix/avoid the problems that would be great or I'd like to know if the university PC installations can easily have fonts installed to avoid the problem, a newer version of Firefox fixes the problem or whether it's just caused by some misconfiguration. about:buildconfig Build platform target i486-pc-linux-gnu Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags gcc gcc version 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu5) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pthread -pipe c++ gcc version 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu5) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe Configure arguments --host=i486-linux-gnu --build=i486-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/firefox --enable-pango --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --with-system-png=/usr --with-system-jpeg=/usr --disable-mailnews --disable-composer --disable-ldap --enable-postscript --disable-installer --disable-xprint --enable-crypto --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --enable-canvas --enable-svg --enable-svg-renderer=cairo --enable-system-cairo --enable-mathml --disable-tests --disable-gtktest --disable-debug --enable-xft '--enable-optimize=-pipe\ -w\ -O2\ -g\ -fno-strict-aliasing' --with-system-zlib=/usr --without-system-nspr --enable-xinerama --enable-extensions=default --disable-pedantic --disable-long-long-warning --enable-single-profile --disable-profilesharing --enable-gnomevfs --enable-application=browser --disable-installer --disable-updater --enable-chrome-format=flat --disable-elf-dynstr-gc --enable-system-myspell --with-distribution-id=com.ubuntu
The buildconfig for my work PC with the latest Windows firefox where the version is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1 and for which my `Table of 63xxx codes and the recommended replacements' test above gives question marks for every encoding (i.e. both the 63xxx and TR25 encodings) is: about:buildconfig Build platform target i586-pc-msvc Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TC -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TP -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) Configure arguments --enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-official-branding --enable-optimize --disable-debug --disable-tests --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-svg --enable-canvas --enable-update-packaging
For our computer lab at one of the universities which has Windows PCs where the version of Firefox is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1 and for which my `Table of 63xxx codes and the recommended replacements' test works fine for all the bracketing 63xxx codes but gives question marks for all the TR25 encodings, the buildconfig is: about:buildconfig Build platform target i586-pc-msvc Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TC -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TP -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) Configure arguments --enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-optimize --disable-debug --disable-tests --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-official-branding --enable-svg --enable-canvas --enable-update-packaging
At the other university the version of Firefox is a little newer and none of the 63xxx or TR25 encodings work. The version there is: Firefox 1.5.0.8 with buildconfig: about:buildconfig Build platform target i586-pc-msvc Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TC -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) $(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 12.00.8804 -TP -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE) Configure arguments --enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-optimize --disable-debug --disable-tests --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-official-branding --enable-svg --enable-canvas --enable-update-packaging
Let me summarise what I perceive the status to be. On UNIX/Linux version 1.0.0 of Mozilla had full support for 63xxx encoded bracket glyphs but did not support TR25 encodings. By version 1.7.8 on UNIX/Linux, TR25 encodings were supported and some other symbols replaced some of the 63xxx encoded closing bracket glyphs. With version 2.0 on UNIX/Linux both 63xxx encoded bracket glyphs and TR25 encodings work nicely. On Windows, Firefox 63xxx encodings worked up until version 1.5.0.1. From at least version 1.5.0.8 until 2.0.0.1, on Windows, 63xxx and TR25 encodings have not been supported. Since many of our students access our quizzes from a Windows OS, it would be desirable to have the same behaviour as for Linux on Windows. I don't know what the behaviour for Macintosh is ... perhaps since MacOSX it's similar to UNIX/Linux.
Initially when posting this bug, there was apparently some interest, but apparently this is not being worked on at all now. It was suggested that we use TR25 encodings instead of 63xxx encodings, but neither is apparently supported even in the latest Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows. Is it the case that to make it work users must individually install special fonts on Windows? i.e. is this something that users and myself can fix ourselves? ... or is there simply something missing for the Windows version? As I said in previous emails, all used to work fine up to version 1.5.0.1 on Windows, and while, for a while, it was partially broken with the UNIX/Linux version, it works fine on UNIX/Linux with the current versions. Currently, I need to advise that Windows users of our quiz software must use Internet Explorer for which only symbol-font encodings are provided, and I think you will agree that Internet Explorer is an inferior browser to Firefox. Could someone confirm that there is a problem and if not tell me why it doesn't work for me and our quiz software users, or fix it so that once again I can advise our Windows users that they can use Firefox. Thanks in advance, Greg Gamble.
This is a mass search for bugs that are in the Firefox General component, are UNCO, and have not been changed for 1000 days and have an unspecified version. Reporter, can you please update to Firefox 3.6.10, create a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles, and test again. If you still see the bug, please update this bug. If the issue is gone, please set the resolution to RESOLVED > WORKSFORME.
Whiteboard: [CLOSEME 2010-11-01]
When version 3.0 of firefox came out, I found more uniformity between versions of firefox built on different operating systems. As a result, I changed the quiz software, for which it's an issue (since I can't know in advance what operating systems my quiz users will be using) to use the TR25 encodings. When I did this, I believed for a while, that I had things universally fixed for users using Firefox 3+, but I was still getting occasional reports from Firefox 3+ users saying that they get the hexadecimal boxes insted of the glyphs. Is it different for Firefox 3.6.10 ? This, I can't say for sure yet, but I'll report, what I personally observe: For Windows XP, I get the following from about:buildconfig ########################################################################### about:buildconfig Source Built from http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-1.9.2/rev/16b7b02798df Build platform target i686-pc-mingw32 Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags cl 14.00.50727.762 -TC -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fdgenerated.pdb -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -Zi -UDEBUG -DNDEBUG -GL -wd4624 -wd4952 -O1 cl 14.00.50727.762 -GR- -TP -nologo -Zc:wchar_t- -W3 -Gy -Fdgenerated.pdb -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -Zi -UDEBUG -DNDEBUG -GL -wd4624 -wd4952 -O1 Configure arguments --enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-update-packaging --enable-jemalloc --enable-official-branding --enable-tests ##################################################################### For my testpage: https://bug366395.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=251248 the 63xxx encodings all come up with hexadecimal boxes, but the TR25 encodings work fine. For linux, with about:buildconfig as follows: ##################################################################### about:buildconfig Build platform target i686-pc-linux-gnu Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags cc gcc version 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -W -Wno-long-long -pedantic -g -fno-strict-aliasing -pthread -pipe -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -Os -freorder-blocks -fno-reorder-functions -finline-limit=50 g++ gcc version 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wcast-align -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-long-long -pedantic -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -Os -freorder-blocks -fno-reorder-functions -finline-limit=50 Configure arguments --build=i486-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr '--includedir=/usr/include' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var '--libexecdir=/usr/lib/firefox-3.0' --disable-maintainer-mode --disable-dependency-tracking --srcdir=. --enable-optimize --enable-ipc --enable-tests --enable-mochitest --disable-system-cairo --disable-system-sqlite --without-system-nspr --without-system-nss --disable-debug --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --without-system-jpeg --without-system-zlib --enable-system-myspell --disable-crashreporter --disable-composer --disable-elf-dynstr-gc --disable-gtktest --disable-install-strip --disable-installer --disable-ldap --disable-mailnews --disable-profilesharing --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-tests --disable-mochitest --disable-updater --disable-xprint --enable-application=browser --enable-canvas --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2 --enable-gnomevfs --enable-pango --enable-postscript --enable-svg --enable-mathml --enable-xft --enable-xinerama --enable-extensions=default,-reporter --enable-safe-browsing --enable-single-profile --with-distribution-id=com.ubuntu --enable-startup-notification --enable-official-branding ###################################################################### For my testpage: https://bug366395.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=251248 both the 63xxx encodings and the TR25 encodings work fine. So, for me personally, the issue would seem to be: RESOLVED > WORKSFORME but I'm loath to set this just yet, until I have confirmation from my quiz users. For the moment let me leave it as UNCONFIRMED ... if in a month, I have no complaints with Firefox 3.6.10, I will set this as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME Thanks Tyler for checking back.
No reply from reporter, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → INCOMPLETE
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