lightdm shows Chinese translations as □ (square)

[Cheng-Chia Tseng]

I have installed 11.10 beta, and enabled oneiric-proposed repository to get the newest translation.

After update, we have some Chinese characters in Lightdm interface.

For example, "其他... (Other...)". However, Lightdm shows □□... instead.

I think this is a release-blocker for non-Latin languages.

[Cheng-Chia Tseng (zerng07)]

Related information from a Japanese user: http://ankyo.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-09-09

Hope this information could help fix this bug sooner.
The content is translated below:

[Ubuntu] User Menu of Login Screen (unity-greeter 0.0.5) Shows Mojibake (Squares) (Temp Solution Provided)

I am using the login screen (unity-greeter 0.0.5) of Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric), but it shows characters in Mojibake (squares).

http://ankyo.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_7b2/ankyo/m_SS-unity-greeter-bug-001.JPG

Caption: "Oneiric" is my login name. The upper and lower part is English before, but now as in Mojibake (squares). It was "Other..." and "Guest Account" respectively before.

So why this problem happens? I think the direct reason is that the Japanese translation for unity-greeter was updated by language-pack-gnome-ja (1:11.10+20110905) released on 2011/09/06

<<Temporarily Solution >>

The Temporarily solution is to recompile unity-greeter, so it is really bothering, and it is not worthy being recommended. I just simply talk about it.

1)Prepare the environment

sudo apt-get build-dep unity-greeter

sudo apt-get install pbuilder build-essential devscripts

2)Get the source code

Create a proper working directory, and cd to it. Then, use the command below to get the source.

apt-get source unity-greeter

3)Edit

cd unity-greeter-0.0.5/src

vi user-list.vala

Go to line 134, I believe it is as below.

FreeType.new_face (library, "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-R.ttf", 0, out face);

Replace the font specified here into one of the Japanese fonts. I choose Takao Gothic.

FreeType.new_face (library, "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/takao/TakaoGothic.ttf", 0, out face);

Below is the diff.

--- unity-greeter-0.0.5.org/src/user-list.vala 2011-09-09 11:36:22.000000000 +0900
+++ unity-greeter-0.0.5/src/user-list.vala 2011-09-09 09:16:33.690009317 +0900
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@
FreeType.Library library;
FreeType.init (out library);
FreeType.Face face;
- FreeType.new_face (library, "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-R.ttf", 0, out face);
+ FreeType.new_face (library, "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/takao/TakaoGothic.ttf", 0, out face);
font_face = Cairo.ft_font_face_create_for_ft_face (face, 0);

menubar = new Gtk.MenuBar ();

4)Compile

cd ..

debuild -us- uc -b

Wait a moment, and the package is done.

5)Install

cd ..

dpkg -i unity-greeter_0.0.5-0ubuntu4_i386.deb

* But unity-greeter will be recovered as you do any update, so you can extract /usr/sbin/unity-greeter from the package and replace it instead.

Afterwards, Login Screen will be something like the screenshot below.

http://ankyo.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_7b2/ankyo/m_SS-unity-greeter-bug-002-910ca.JPG

However, although we fix the squares, the message prompted to inform us wrong number typed will go across the boarder of the dialogue window.

http://ankyo.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_7b2/ankyo/m_SS-unity-greeter-bug-003-0a059.JPG

So, I think that we just have to bear it before it is fixed.

I am wondering this bug is the same as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-greeter/+bug/840868 or not. But maybe they are different form each other...