709553 - [my] Unicode codepoint boxes displayed instead of Myanmar (Burmese) text (was: Nightly can't print Unicode Burmese correctly.)

Status: NEW

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

Description

[Alex Leung]

Nightly can't print Burmese correctly.

STR:
1. download and install Burmese unicode font at http://www.myanmarnlp.net.mm/
2. go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_alphabet.
3. print the 1st page.

results:
the Burmese in the first sentence became symbols/gibberish.

expected results:
the Burmese in the first sentence should match the Burmese picture in the description box on the right.

Firefox 8.0/8.01 print correctly.

if the above mentioned website is not enough to show the problem, try this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/burmese/

Comment 1

[arky [:arky]]

Attachment: BBC Burmese on Nightly Desktop

Testing bbc website on Desktop Nightly (20.0a1 (2012-11-25) on Ubuntu LTS

Comment 2

[arky [:arky]]

Attachment: Print output on Ubuntu

Comment 3

[arky [:arky]]

Attachment: Screenshot from JellyBean CM10 phone running nightly

Comment 4

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to Alex Leung from comment #0)
> 1. download and install Burmese unicode font at http://www.myanmarnlp.net.mm/

I got a server not found error trying to load that address. Apparently they used to host the Myanmar3 font. I got it from
https://code.google.com/p/myanmar3source/downloads/detail?name=mm3-multi-os%2816-08-2011%29.ttf&can=2&q=

I'm not seeing any issues here in the latest Nightly. Printing works fine — that is, to paper, not a document like PDF. The print preview and web pages also look okay. Tested in Windows 7 x64 and Windows XP x86.

If this report needs to be reopened, please
* Test in a fresh profile in the latest Nightly.
* Check if there's a difference when you toggle hardware acceleration under Options - Advanced - General then restart Firefox.
* Attach a screenshot, or a scanned or photographed image of the problem.

Comment 5

[Gingerbread Man]

Attachment: Windows 7 x64 HWA ON - Myanmar3 font, Myanmar Text font

I can reproduce this after all. Revised information:

* In Windows XP x86, everything's fine with just the Myanmar3 font.
* In Windows 7 x64 with hardware acceleration disabled, everything's fine with just the Myanmar3 font.
* In Windows 7 x64 with hardware acceleration enabled, Firefox shows Unicode codepoint boxes instead of the actual text. This happens with the Myanmar3 font, or Padauk, or TharLon.
* In Windows 7 x64 with hardware acceleration enabled, everything's fine with the Myanmar Text font that's supplied with Windows 8 (N.B.: I didn't test Windows 8, only the font installed in Windows 7).

The problem was observable right there on the web page though; no printing was necessary. It seems the problem is with the font fallback mechanism when hardware acceleration is enabled on Windows 7 (and 8?). The page specifies font-family: sans-serif, which by default is Arial. That's what Firefox uses, even though that font doesn't support those characters.

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #5)
> The problem was observable right there on the web page though; no printing
> was necessary. It seems the problem is with the font fallback mechanism when
> hardware acceleration is enabled on Windows 7 (and 8?). The page specifies
> font-family: sans-serif, which by default is Arial. That's what Firefox
> uses, even though that font doesn't support those characters.

Does it make any difference if you set gfx.font_rendering.fallback.always_use_cmaps to true in about:config?

Comment 7

[Gingerbread Man]

Attachment: myanmar_fontfallback_test.html

(In reply to Jonathan Kew (:jfkthame) from comment #6)
> Does it make any difference if you set
> gfx.font_rendering.fallback.always_use_cmaps to true in about:config?

Yes.

Regardless of the above setting, the title bar displays hollow boxes instead of the actual text. However, I'm sure that's an operating system problem, not a browser problem.

So this is essentially the same problem as the following.
* Bug 762090.
* Bug 776284.
The key difference is that this is a live language — spoken by approximately 43 million people — as opposed to Akkadian and Ugaritic. On top of that, Firefox is going to be localized in this language soon.

Wouldn't this would be solved by having Myanmar in the Fonts for: menu, rather than having it lumped under Other Languages? That way the browser could be aware of fonts that support it [1], and look specifically for those on the system.
* Bug 832746.

[1] http://www.myanmarlanguage.org/unicode/myanmar-fonts-which-follow-unicode-rules
http://www.myanmarlanguage.org/unicode/why-they-are-not-unicode

Comment 8

[yes]

confirmed.