903507 - Gujarati characters on websites not displayed on firefox for android

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[[:philipp]]

a user on the support forum reported that gujarati characters are not rendered properly on webpages, http://ojas.guj.nic.in/ is an example.

reference: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/967477

i could replicate this issue with firefox 23 on a jelly bean device (4.2.2) and it looks similar to another language rendering issue in bug 897068: https://bug897068.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=779814

Comment 1

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Jonathan, what is the state of complex text-layout support on mobile and supporting fonts like Gujarati? The site renders blank characters in position in Chrome for Android on my device (LG Nexus 4) and blocks in Firefox for Android as there is no support altogether.

Comment 2

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

The rendering/shaping support is there, but if the device doesn't have a font (and the site doesn't provide one via @font-face) then all you'll see are boxes/blanks.

I believe some devices (especially ones marketed in India, I presume) include Indic-language fonts, but AFAIK they're not standard across all devices/vendors.

Bug 843592 was filed about including Indic fonts in B2G, though it seems to be stalled at the moment; we might want to bundle such a set of fonts in Firefox for Android, too, given that most devices in the market don't provide them preinstalled. The only downside, AFAIK, would be the increase in download size / footprint on device.

Comment 3

[[:philipp]]

i cannot judge the additional payload this would entail, but it certainly would be a differentiating factor to other browsers and would show that firefox cares about regional languages and diversities - i also think that india might be an important market for firefox os...

Comment 4

[u549602]

This issue could be reproduced on Alcatel one touch (Android 4.1.2)and Xiaomi Mi i4 (Android 5.0.2). 
This issue could not be reproduced on Sony Xperia Z2 with 5.0.2 Android and Nexus 7 & with 5.1.1 Android

Please note that on the Xperia Z2, Gujarati language was not displayed in the settings language list and the characters were correctly displayed and on the Nexus 7, the language was displayed and selected as browser language with correct character display afterwards. 
On the Xiaomi Mi i4 device, the language was listed but not recognized by the device.

Should this issue be closed as invalid, since fonts are not displayed because they're not installed on android?

Comment 5

[miralobontiu]

Hi,

Can you still reproduce the issue?

Thank you!

Comment 6

[[:philipp]]

i'm on a different device now where the problem no longer reproduces. i think i'll go along with the prior comments and close the bug & hope that devices marketed in india mostly come with the appropriate fonts preinstalled.