Clicking Arial Black selects Arial Bold

[Ola Lindberg]

If I click on Arial Black in the font drop down it selects Arial Bold.

Reproduce:

1). Write a text
2). Change to Arial Black, it selects Arial bold

On WinXP inkscapeR9492-1006081319

[su_v (suv-lp)]

reproduced with Inkscape 0.47+devel r9506 on OS X 10.5.8 [1]

Arial fonts (TTF) listed in Inkscape:
- Arial
- Arial Black (falls back to Arial, bolded)
- Arial Narrow (works)
- Arial Rounded MT Bold (works)
- Arial Unicode (works)

similar issues with other font families, e.g.
Delicious (OTF):
- Delicious
- Delicious Heavy (falls back to Delicious, bolded)
- Delicious SmallCaps (falls back to Delicious)
Fontin:
- Fontin (TTF)
- Fontin Sans (OTF) (works)
- Fontin SmallCaps (TTF) (falls back to Fontin)

Note:
1) all font variants can be selected and applied without issues in the Text&Font dialog.
2) in my tests I did not highlight any text, but just positioned the text cursor inside the current text object

[1] Arial: system fonts (Monotype)
    Delicious: <http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/delicious.html>
    Fontin: <http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/fontin.html>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

not reproduced with Inkscape 0.47 r22583 on OS X 10.5.8

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@Tav - subscribing you to this report because as far as I can tell it didn't happen in 0.47 and might possibly be related to your new code. Could you take a look at it?

[Andrea Lazzarotto (Lazza) (andrea-lazzarotto)]

I use Ubuntu 10.10 and Inkscape version 0.48.0-1ubuntu1 (the stock one in Ubuntu Maverick). I have the same issues with the Delicious SmallCaps...

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Same issue with
- Aller
- Aller Light

On the other hand, from the same font family
- Aller Display
works fine and can be selected in the drop-down.

(Free) Aller font:
<http://www.typophile.com/node/51198>
<http://www.dmjx.dk/international/press/font.html>
<http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Aller>

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Still affecting trunk revision 11652, Windows XP, but a bit differently:

- Fontin (TTF) (works)
- Fontin Sans (OTF) (falls back to sans)
- Fontin SmallCaps (OTF) (works)

[rickmastfan67 (rickmastfan67)]

The bug with "Arial Black" defaulting back to "Arial +Bold" is still happening for me. :(

Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939
Windows 7 x64

However, there is a workaround inside of Inkscape to get Arial Black to work for the text your working on:
1. Type your text.
2. Try to select Arial Black. (Inkscape instead selects Arial +Bold)
3. Edit > XML Editor
4. Once the XML editor opens, it should be opened on your text. So, on the left part of the the XML screen, expand the "svg:text" arrow to display the "svg:tspan" part.
5. once you've done that, go to the right side of the XML screen and select the "style" Attribute.
6. Now, find the following text "font-family:Arial", and add " Black" after "Arial" (don't forget the space between the two words).

And there you go, you now have "Arial Black" loaded and working for your text selection.

Still, I have to admit, this workaround is annoying even though it does work. So, I'd love to see this text bug fixed by the time that 0.49 comes out if possible (or even 0.48.5 if the fix can easily be backported with no problems).

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

@rickmastfan67:
it seems easier to me to use the text and font dialog (shift+ctrl+t) where you can correctly select 'Arial Black'

[rickmastfan67 (rickmastfan67)]

Ok, some more info. I just downloaded "Inkscape 0.48+devel r12011" and ran it with a completely brand new preferences folder.

In this build, I can't even find "Arial Black" in the font list (0.48.4 at least showed it in the list). So, I go ahead and type something and then try to change the text to "Arial Black" by just typing the full font name in the font box.

Well, when I did that, instead of defaulting to Arial +Bold like in the 0.48.x branches, it now defaults to "Arial +Heavy".

So, I then go ahead and attempt to do the workaround that I posted in the thread above for 0.48.4 here in 0.48+devel r12011. Doing that finally gets Inkscape to show the font in the font box, HOWEVER, the yellow warning error icon shows up and says the "Font not found on system". WTF! I find that really weird since 0.48.4 at least acknowledges that the font exists. So, there seems to be a new regression not allowing the font to be even acknowledged in Inkscape. :(

[rickmastfan67 (rickmastfan67)]

@vaifrax:
You're right. That is way easier and does work in 0.48.4.

However, that doesn't work for "Inkscape 0.48+devel r12011" as Arial Black doesn't even show up in that version. :( And my workaround is the only way for it to be called in that version.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

in r12030 I can type 'Arial Black' in the toolbar which seems to work: it switches to 'Arial' 'heavy' which to me looks exactly like Arial Black. Arial Black is not shown in the list, so this is contrary to the behavior of other Windows software.

I still can select 'Aller Light' only with the dialog (ctrl+shift+t) and not with the toolbar.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

I started debugging and found that fontInstanceMap contains 'Aller Light,' instead of 'Aller Light'.
So a workaround to select 'Aller Light' in the dropdown is to type 'Aller Light,' (with the comma).

I will try to find the reason if I find some time.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

from pango docs:
  pango_font_description_to_string ()
    [...] The family list in the string description will only have a terminating
    comma if the last word of the list is a valid style option.

I found 'Aller Light' and 'Times New Roman' have a comma at the end.
I made a patch resolving the issue with 'Aller Light'. Please confirm for the other fonts.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Patch from comment #13 tested successfully on Debian testing, Inkscape trunk revision 12050, with Arial Black and Fontin Smallcaps, and some others to track regressions.

[Tavmjong Bah (tavmjong-free)]

As vaifrax points out: pango-font-description-to-string adds a trailing comma to a family name when the last word in a family list is a valid style attribute. See:

http://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/pango-Fonts.html#pango-font-description-to-string

This is to prevent confusion between:

Aller Light, (Aller Light family) and
Aller LIght (Aller family with a light weight).

Simply stripping off the comma may work in practice, but we should be aware that it may make break things elsewhere. At least a comment should be added to the patch explaining why the comma is being stripped.

In the long run, it might be better to do the opposite, add a hidden comma to Aller LIght (etc.) when it is typed into the font selection drop-down.

[ScislaC (scislac)]

JazzyNico: Was your system behaving different with Arial Black? Mine is not.

[ScislaC (scislac)]

This probably won't add much to the discussion since we're probably the only ones using Pango, but I did a quick comparison against LibreOffice Writer & Scribus to see how they handle these things. With Inkscape Arial Black (when chosen through the T&F dialog) has two variants, neither one is "Regular", we just have Italic & Bold Italic (which appear the same visually). LibreOffice by default outputs a "Regular" Arial Black and lets you apply Italic to it, and if you add Bold as well it doesn't change visually. Scribus on the other hand only lists "Regular" as a variant.

A) Inkscape can't do Arial Bold as Regular
B) Scribus can't do Arial Bold as anything but Regular
C) LibreOffice Writer doesn't show variants that I'm aware of but can at least achieve both of what Inkscape and Scribus can.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

@ScislaC - Without the patch, applying Arial Black doesn't work (the font is replaced with Arial, bold style). With the patch, it works as expected.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

@ScislaC: On my system (Win7/64) and current trunk, Arial Black does not show up in the font list any more (compared to 0.48.1), it is now listed under Arial, Heavy. Typing Arial Black in the toolbar still shows the correct font in both cases. Without patch however, a warning icon shows up, saying that the font is missing from the system.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

Adding to comment #18:
D) Gimp 2.8.2 shows 'Aller Light,' and 'Times New Roman,' including the trailing comma in the font list directly.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

@Tavmjong Bah: thinking more about this, currently to select 'Aller family with a light weight' you'd have to type 'Aller, Light' so there is no confusion with 'Aller Light family'.

So I'm still positive, at least for now, to strip the comma and I added a more detailed description to the patch.

We still have an inconsistency now, with Arial Black showing up in the family Arial with style Heavy but Aller Light showing as an own family. This is not ideal but I can live with it.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

On OS X 10.7.4, current trunk r12051 + bugfix595432.patch (X11- as well as Quartz-based builds) works for 'Aller Light' and 'Fontin SmallCaps', but doesn't help e.g. with 'Arial Black', or 'Delicious Heavy' and 'Delicious SmallCaps' - for those one can either use the 'Text and Font' dialog, or type the comma manually in the font selector of the text tool.

[Tavmjong Bah (tavmjong-free)]

Even with the patch, I have trouble changing style sometimes. I will look into finding a more generic solution in the next week that handles CSS family lists better.

[Tavmjong Bah (tavmjong-free)]

Checked in a partial fix. This seems to fix all the problems listed in this bug report but the handling of font-fallback lists still needs to be improved.

Please check.

[vaifrax (vaifrax)]

I confirm, the patch (r12080) mentioned above also solves the problems I had (I can select 'Aller Light' now). Thanks.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Partial fix (comment #25) committed in r12080-12082.

[quaec (quaec)]

I noticed the same error today when I wanted to use the Aller font in a project and Inkscape always used the "Light" variant.

I've installed an somewhat older dev-package (Inkscape 0.48+devel r12149 (Feb 24 2013)) for precise from Cafuego[1] today and I have still the same problems with the Aller font as #5 described.

I can only select "Aller" and "Aller Display", in both the drop-down menu and the Font dialogue. When I choose "Aller", the font is displayed in the Light variant instead of the Regular variant. Other variants like bold, italic and bold italic work fine.

The problem with Arial Black seems to be fixed, the font doesn't get replaced with Arial Bold anymore.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~cafuego/+archive/inkscape/+build/4323759

[Tavmjong Bah (tavmjong-free)]

@quaec. I can't reproduce your observation with the latest trunk (r12167). I can select "Aller" and what I see is definitely heavier than "Aller Light". I did check in yesterday code so that the Text and Font dialog uses the same routines as used by the Text tool-bar.

[quaec (quaec)]

@Tavmjong: Thanks for your reply. So you see "Aller", "Aller light" and "Aller Display" in your font list? I only see "Aller" and "Aller Display".

I also deleted my settings (~/.config/inkscape) and tried again, but I see the same behavior.

(I got the font from http://www.daltonmaag.com/Aller_Std_Family.zip and copied all .ttf files to ~/.fonts/)

I will try a newer trunk and see what happens.

[quaec (quaec)]

@Tavmjong: I compiled from 0.49-trunk (r12167) now and have exact the same problems as before (comment #30).
"Aller Light" isn't available, when I select "Aller" it uses "Aller Light" and the other variants seem to work.

Is there something I can do or provide to help with troubleshooting the problem?

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Aller, Aller Light and Aller Display work ok with r12167 on OS X 10.7.4
(gtk2/x11 2.24.13, fontconfig 2.9.0, freetype 2.4.10, glib2 2.32.4, pango 1.30.1)
(gtk2/quartz 2.24.16, fontconfig 2.9.0, freetype 2.4.10, glib2 2.34.3, pango 1.32.5)

[Tavmjong Bah (tavmjong-free)]

@quaec: Are the fonts being properly loaded into any other programs (e.g. Gimp)?

[quaec (quaec)]

@~suv: I'm working with (r12167) on Ubuntu 12.04 x86_64

  * gtk2/x11 2.24.10-0ubuntu6
  * fontconfig 2.8.0-3ubuntu9.1
  * freetype 2.4.8-1ubuntu2.1
  * glib2 2.32.3-0ubuntu1
  * pango 1.30.0-0ubuntu3.1

@Tavmjong: In Gimp 2.6.12 and 2.8.4 I see the fonts in the following order:
  * Aller
  * Aller
  * Aller Bold
  * Aller Bild Italic
  * Aller Italic
  * Aller Italic

The two doubled entries do the same. "Aller" displays "Aller Light" and "Aller Italic" displays (correctly) "Aller Italic". The other entries work as expected.

In LibreOffice 4.0.0.3 every works as expected, I see "Aller", "Aller Light" and "Aller Display" in the font list.

In gEdit I have the same behavior as Gimp.

When I look up the font in "Font Manager 0.5.7" the fonts get displayed as following:
  * Aller
    * Bold -> Aller_Std_Bd.ttf (correctly)
    * Bold Italics -> Aller_Std_BdIt.ttf (correctly)
    * Italic -> Aller_Std_LtIt.ttf (wrong)
    * Light Italic -> Aller_Std_LtIt.ttf (correctly)
    * Standard -> Aller_Std_Lt.ttf (wrong)
  * Aller Display (correctly)

[quaec (quaec)]

I tested a bit further:

I installed Ubuntu 12.10 32bit in a VM with Inkscape 0.48.3.1 r9886 from the Ubuntu repos. There I have the same problem as described above.

On Windows 7 64bit with Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939 it doesn't work quite as expected, but with a different behavior:
  * "Aller", "Aller Light" and "Aller Display" are in the list but I only can choose "Aller Light" from the font dialog.
  * If I try to choose "Aller Light" from the list, "Aller" gets displayed/choosen instead.

[quaec (quaec)]

Ok, I made another test on a current 64-bit Arch Linux system. I had the same problems as on Ubuntu (comment #28).

Note that this was the same version as on Windows (comment #36).

Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939
  * gtk2/x11 2.24.16-12.24.10-0ubuntu6
  * fontconfig 2.10.2-1
  * freetype 2.4.11-2
  * glib2 2.34.3-1
  * pango 1.32.5-1

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@quaec - do you still have the issue with current trunk?

'Aller', 'Aller Light' work as expected with Inkscape trunk r13673 and Inkscape 0.91pre2 r13633 (see attached screenshot with trunk r13673 on OS X 10.7.5, using glib2 2.42.0, gtk2 2.24.25, fontconfig 2.11.1, freetype 2.5.3, pango 1.36.8).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Assuming fixed (no further feedback).

[quaec (quaec)]

@ ~suv

Sorry for the late answer. I just tested the current trunk and all looks good!

Thank you for your help!