CJK fonts should not have highest priority

[depp]

Binary package hint: language-selector

  * fontconfig/zh_{CN,HK,SG,TW}:
    - move AR PL UMing TW, AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni and WenQuanYi Bitmap Song
      up in the fontconfig priority (thanks to Arne Goetje)

I think bitstream and dejavu should still have the highest priority. The non-CJK characters these fonts have are really ugly, so it's better to use bitstream or dejavu to display non-CJK characters.

[Arne Goetje (arnegoetje)]

Attached are two screenshots. Screenshot1 is with bitstream and dejavu having higher priorities and Screenshot2 is AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni having higher priority.
Now, I can't really see why the Latin glyphs in that font are "ugly". I and many other users (that's why I changed the priority, because many other Chinese users complained to me) prefer to have a consistent typeface on their desktop.

Besides, as font selection is a personal matter there will never be one default setting which fits all users.
I hope, that we can have a GUI some day which allows users to easily set their preferred font preferences and settings (hinting, anti-aliasing, bitmaps) without the need to hack fontconfig's configuration files by hand. Maybe we can have that already in Hardy, I will surely discuss this issue on the upcoming UDS in the end of this month.

[depp (li-sun)]

I see your point. Then i'll count on the new GUI.

[Qianqian Fang (fangq)]

I agree with depp that it would be more consistent and
visually pleasant if the dedicated Latin serif fonts are placed
above CJK ones.

There are lot of limitations for the Latin glyphs in CJK fonts,
particularly in UMing/UKai: they are mono-spaced, with
neither hinting nor kerning, and have never been optimized
as Dejavu/Droid/Liberation etc. The embedded bitmaps
are quite rough: the baselines are not aligned, the serifs
are not consistent and lots of glyphs fills the whole EM
which glues the adjacent bitmap glyphs together (for example,
"zr" and "200" as in Arne's screenshots).

Monospaced Latins are primarily good for console or
editors; in other places, they are much inferior to
proportional ones. To put Dejavu serif or Droid
Serif above UMing is highly desired for CJK locales.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.5.7

---------------
language-selector (0.5.7) lucid; urgency=low

  * Change fontconfig settings:
    - zh-*: reorder font priority lists, put DejaVu and Bitstream Vera in front
    (LP: #149944)
    - zh-*: add WenQuanYi Microhei, Droid Sans Fallback and HYSong
    - ja: add entries for Takao and IPA fonts, reorder and merge
    required rendering options from the 29-language-selector-ja-jp.conf file
    (LP: #535582)
    - update 30-cjk-aliases.conf to include localized font names and fonts used
    in Windows 7.
 -- Arne Goetje <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:49:18 +0200