GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 384876
No Fonts are displayed *anywhere*: main screen, dialogs, drop-down menues, etc
Last modified: 2007-12-26 04:12:21 UTC
No Fonts are displayed *anywhere*: main screen, dialogs, drop-down menues, etc. All characters appear as a string of rectangles. 1. I've checked the open bugs for 'font' but nothing appears to match this bug. 2. I tried reinstalling the latest, stable, GTK & GIMP, but the problem remains. I'd like to paste a screenshot, but Bugzilla won't let me.
Created attachment 78174 [details] Screenshot of Font Rectangles Bug Sorry: I can attach a screenshot in follow-up comments.
See bug #345267.
We definitely need more information. What locale are you using? What's the system font? What else could you tell us about your system?
Alfredo, this will not be solved if you don't answer the questions.
Sorry, didn't see comment #3. I played around with the system fonts this morning. I was using the fixed-spacing TrueType Font "ProFont for Windows" for all my dialogs, available here: http://www.tobiasjung.net/download.php?file=MProFont.zip This was a .TTF, so I decided to change to the .fon version instead http://www.tobiasjung.net/download.php?file=profontwin.zip Everything now displays correctly. Only GIMP had a problem with this .TTF: every other application, and I have many including cross-developed applications like: = OpenOffice, = Rowley's CrossStudio for ARM (which uses QT), = JEdit (Java), = Vim, = Cygwin-X, = Code::Blocks, etc.
Created attachment 80285 [details] Showing Gimp using Arial(?) after changing my fixed system fron from .ttf to .fon Gimp has reverted to using some sans serif font (Arial?) after I changed my system font from .ttf to a .fon.
Whatever is causing this, it's most certainly not a GIMP problem and we can't do anything about it. If you want to see this being addressed, you should check other GTK+ applications on your system and eventually file a bug report against GTK+.
Problems with the Profont fonts are known (at least they have been the cause for similar symptoms in the past). Seems like http://www.tobiasjung.net is the website of the author, maybe he knows about the problem already.
Comments from a scribus developer: "that is a bitmap font in a TTF wrapper why someone would use it as a GUI font.. eeew" Apparently there are some other problems as well. There's code to reject broken fonts in Scribus' scfonts.cpp, http://docs.scribus.net/devel/scfonts_8cpp-source.html (in SCFonts::AddScalableFont, I think)
When you say you had the "ProFontWindows" as system font, what exactly do you mean? Did you select it in Display Settings:Appearance:Advanced as the font for Message Boxes? What size did you select, 8? I did that, but couldn't reproduce the problem. (GTK+ apps did not use this font even if set gtk-theme-name="MS-Windows" in gtkrc, they just printed warnings "Pango-WARNING **: couldn't load font "ProFontWindows 8, falling back to Sans 8".) (To see such warnings it's easiest to use for instance gtk-demo.exe and not GIMP, as GIMP firstly normally is a GUI executable and it's stderr doesn't show up even if you start it from a command prompt, and secondly, it does some special tricks and these warnings go somewhere else even if you change it into a console executable...)
Note that there are 2 ProFontWindows fonts. The one I had trouble with GTK/GIMP was the .ttf version. I changed to the .fon version, and GIMP now displays text/dialogs/etc correctly. The .fon version is probably responsible for the "falling back to Sans..." message: remember that I said that GIMP dialogs now look like Arial. (As to "why someone would use it as a GUI font.. eeew": it is only a wise man who knows that he knows little. Tobias Jung especially designed ProFont as a tiny but legible font for text editors: it packs tightly, is fixed-width, and is good for 1<>l, 0<>O and others. It's also good for directory listings, either GUI or text(dir or ls). See http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/ Another tiny similar font is Sheldon. See attached screenshot of ProFont Vs Courier)
Created attachment 80356 [details] Screenshot of ProFont Vs Courier The clarity of Profont, even though its packing density is higher than Courier, is also clearer.
Can you please reassign this bug to GTK+ or Pango. It is in no way a GIMP bug.
> Note that there are 2 ProFontWindows fonts Yes I know, as I said in comment #10. Instead of trying to diagnose the mechanisms that cause the symptom you are seeing yourself ("is probably responsible for"), or bragging about the clarity of ProFont (which is absolutely irrelevant from this bug's point of view), why didn't you answer the direct question I asked? I repeat: When you say you had the "ProFontWindows" as system font, what exactly do you mean? Did you select it in Display Settings:Appearance:Advanced as the font for Message Boxes? What size did you select, 8?
Also please note that unless you cooperate by giving the information asked for, not much can be done about this problem. As I said in comment #10, I couldn't reproduce it myself just by guessing what you exactly had done.
Created attachment 80438 [details] Display Settings:Appearance:Advanced : selection of ProFont (In reply to comment #14) > When you say you had the "ProFontWindows" as system font, what exactly do you > mean? Did you select it in Display Settings:Appearance:Advanced as the font for > Message Boxes? What size did you select, 8? Yes, please see attachment gtk_screenshot_5.png I selected 9 most of the time, which is the same width as 8, just a pixel taller which is nicer in menus, Windows Explorer, etc. (I usually use 8 where I want more lines per window, e.g. text editors, but that doesn't change Windows settings.) > ... or bragging about the clarity > of ProFont (which is absolutely irrelevant from this bug's point of view), *I* know it's irrelevant, but I was humiliated and I lost face because I had chosen a fixed font (I was not bragging(after all, I didn't design it): I chose the font for very good reasons), and I do not have to take abuse like "ewwww" for my actions. I am not a slave, and I will not stand here quietly and be abused. <rant removed>. Please feel free to edit, mediate, truncate or remove this second comment, or the whole thread if you like. I was trying to point out a problem, and I get abused and humiliated for my effort.
Created attachment 80460 [details] screenshot of Control Panel with ProFontWindows as Icon font If I set ProFontWindows to be the Icon font as in your screenshot, all icon text disappears from Explorer ;) (See screenshot above.) If I set it as the Message Boxes font, all text disappears from the application "GroupWise", which seems to use that font for all its text... There is something seriously wrong with ProFontWindows, it seems.
Created attachment 80476 [details] Set To Courier New I set all Windows fonts to Courier New & everything OK: see GIMP screenshot.
Created attachment 80477 [details] Set back to ProFont TTF version - Now works OK! Set back to ProFont TTF version, now works OK!
Created attachment 80478 [details] Set to old ProFont TTF version (which had a different scaling size) - it's OK now, too! Just for curiosity purposes, I set Windows to old ProFont TTF version (which had a different scaling size) - it's OK, too!
Now, I cannot get GIMP/GTK to fail... everything I try is OK! See Comment #18, Comment #19, Comment #20. Each font I tried, I did this: = change the Windows settings to Courier New, = delete the old font = restart Windows = install the new font to be tested = change the Windows settings to the new font = start GIMP I have not see the problem in Comment #17: my Explorer & other windows all appear OK. I don't know what to try now.
Hmm, so now everything works for you? (And I still haven't been able to either reproduce the original problem, or take ProFontWindows into use in GTK+ apps.) Is it really necessary to restart Windows for font setting changes to properly take effect? I will have to do further testing in a virtual machine then. I notice there are two versions of the TrueType ProFontWindows on the tobias-jung site: MProFont.zip and ProFontWinTweaked.zip. I used the MProFont.zip one, did you use the other one?
i get a similar problem with the new debian testing, with all fonts except "kochi gothic" and one or two others: $ gedit --g-fatal-warnings Pango-WARNING **: shape engine failure, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Bitstream Vera Sans 12' Backtrace was generated from '/usr/bin/gedit' (no debugging symbols found) Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libthread_db.so.1". (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) (no debugging symbols found) [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] [New Thread -1493940544 (LWP 9605)] 0xffffe410 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
+ Trace 108603
Thread 1 (Thread -1493940544 (LWP 9605))
Problems with GTK+ or Pango in Debian are totally unrelated to problems with GTK+ or Pango on Win32, though. Sigh.
why? it happens also with windows fonts on debian ... but ok ... ill look for the bug with linux :)
*** Bug 433172 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Since Alfredo said this is working I'm going to go ahead and close this bug.