Ubuntu
firefox package

[MASTER] Firefox-3.6 doesn't respect font settings

Bug #512561 reported by Alexey Ten (Lynn) on 2010-01-25

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #379761: MASTER - Font hinting does not honour gnome-settings in Firefox. Edit Remove

This bug affects 14 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	Mozilla Firefox	Confirmed	Unknown	mozilla-bugs #541319
	firefox (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: firefox

I've just updated to firefox 3.6 from Firefox Stable Channel Packages (https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/firefox-stable).
It uses full hinting while I set up my system to use slight one.

I'm using xubuntu karmic

lynn@x200s:~$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~mfs~karmic1
  Candidate: 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~mfs~karmic1
  Version table:
*** 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~mfs~karmic1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1 0
        500 http://ru.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com karmic-security/main Packages
     3.5.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://ru.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages

See original description

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Marien Zwart (marienz) wrote on 2010-01-22:

And this is not bug 458612 (that is: you tried with a ~/.fonts.conf as mentioned around bug 458612 comment 14)? See also bug 458612 comment 31 for a way to check for that issue.

If you are correct about the only relevant difference being the 04_lcd_filter patch isn't this a bug with the ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa? That is: don't you just want them to apply that patch to mozilla's copy of cairo when building?

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Reed Loden (reed) wrote on 2010-01-22:

Most likely a dupe of bug 458612 or bug 404637...

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-01-22:

I don't think that this is caused by the lcd patch (alone).

Andres, can you check if firefox honours any of the settings you can change in the gnome fonts dialog wrt hinting, anti aliasing, subpixel rendering?

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Anders Kaseorg (andersk) wrote on 2010-01-22:

The Smoothing control (None/Grayscale/Subpixel) and the Subpixel Order control (RGB/BGR/VRGB/VBGR) takes effect after a restart of Firefox (though in other applications it takes effect immediately). The Hinting control (None/Slight/Medium/Full) does not take effect in Firefox.

AFAIK there’s no GNOME control for the LCD filter.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Anders Kaseorg (andersk) wrote on 2010-01-22:

I am aware of bug 458612, but this isn’t the problem I’m reporting. Ubuntu’s /etc/fonts/conf.d/11-lcd-filter-lcddefault.conf sets the right LCD filter systemwide, and changing lcdfilter in ~/.fonts.conf affects other non-GNOME applications but not Firefox.

Bug 404637 does match my symptoms.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-01-23:

i debugged this issue a few month ago and from my understanding it has something to do that gtk+ using system cairo for the font settings initialization and stores the config in a struct that is then not seen by firefox cairo ... but thats just out of the top of my head. I will see if i find the place where this happened again ...

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Vish (vish) wrote on 2010-01-24:

I'm facing the same problem on 32 bit too:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2)
Gecko/20100124 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6

Revision history for this message

Alexey Ten (Lynn) (alexeyten) wrote on 2010-01-25: Firefox-3.6 doesn't respect font settings

Binary package hint: firefox

I've just updated to firefox 3.6 from Firefox Stable Channel Packages (https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/firefox-stable).
It uses full hinting while I set up my system to use slight one.

description:

updated

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alessandro Ghersi (alessandro-ghersi) wrote on 2010-01-26:

Same problem here with Kubuntu Lucid

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100125 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Mozilla-bugs-micahscomputing (mozilla-bugs-micahscomputing) wrote on 2010-01-29:

#10

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 404637 ***

Revision history for this message

Alexey Ten (Lynn) (alexeyten) wrote on 2010-01-30: Re: Firefox-3.6 doesn't respect font settings

#11

Screenshot of Firefox 3.6 Edit (136.0 KiB, image/png)

This is screenshot of Firefox 3.6 on fresh installation of Ubuntu Karmic

Revision history for this message

Alexey Ten (Lynn) (alexeyten) wrote on 2010-01-30:

#12

Screenshot of Firefox 3.5 Edit (152.1 KiB, image/png)

This is screenshot of default Firefox 3.5 on the same machine just before update to Firefox 3.6

Revision history for this message

innervision (dguaraglia) wrote on 2010-01-31:

#13

I think this is a duplicate of bug 512615 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/512615)

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#14

Bug 404637 is not obviously a dupe of this one. that one is about the lcd patch; this one is also about gtk settings not being honoured at all for hinting.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Ventnor-bugzilla (ventnor-bugzilla) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#15

Is the Ubuntu patch now included in upstream Cairo? If so, this will be fixed by bug 542605

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Ventnor-bugzilla (ventnor-bugzilla) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#16

And if not, you may want to talk to the owner of that bug to discuss possible inclusion.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#17

michael, this bug is about gtksettings for hinting style is not honoured if you use --disable-system-cairo - we dont have a patch for that in ubuntu.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Karlt (karlt) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#18

asac: are you sure you don't have fontconfig rules overriding the gtk settings?
(See bug 458612.)

Micah Gersten (micahg) on 2010-02-09

summary:

- Firefox-3.6 doesn't respect font settings
+ [MASTER] Firefox-3.6 doesn't respect font settings

Revision history for this message

Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-02-09:

#19

this isnt a dupe of the lcd bug previously used to dupe in. please keep this a standalone bug.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater) on 2010-02-11

Changed in firefox:
status:	Unknown → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Alexander Sack (asac) wrote on 2010-02-11:

#20

Karl, iirc that was fixed a while ago by a fontconfig cleanup. also iirc, it was an issue even when using system-cairo.

Also, afaict fontconfig should never win over gtk settings - and thats the behaviour you see on the rest of the desktop.

Revision history for this message

In Mozilla Bugzilla #541319, Karlt (karlt) wrote on 2010-02-11:

#21

(In reply to comment #15)
> Karl, iirc that was fixed a while ago by a fontconfig cleanup. also iirc, it
> was an issue even when using system-cairo.

Excellent. As you imply, if gtk settings are having an effect with system-cairo, they should be having an effect with tree-cairo. This is the code that pulls in GTK Settings:

http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-1.9.2/file/b24909ba494f/gfx/thebes/src/gfxPangoFonts.cpp#l3145

Doing "call FcPatternPrint(aPattern)" before and after cairo_ft_font_options_substitute() may be enlightening.

Revision history for this message

cdahmedeh (cdahmedeh) wrote on 2010-02-14:

#22

fontrendering.png Edit (81.3 KiB, image/png)

It's a bug related to the lcdfilter setting. Some discussion, and probably a way to solve the problem : http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8788243 . I also attached a screenshot to show the issue :
-Notice how the menu of VirtualBox and the menu of nautilus looks nice and smooth.
-The Firefox menu text looks thiner, and causes eye strain. It feels like someone compressed the text with jpeg.

Revision history for this message

Benjamin Drung (bdrung) wrote on 2010-04-04:

#23

I can confirm it on lucid with firefox 3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu1. Deactivate all smoothing and hinting. Then you will see that every font looks ugly except firefox.