Fontconfig - Jan 2011 - [ft-devel] family_name for the font without ASCII names

Hi,

Recently I found a group of Japanese fonts that requires
hinting even for ASCII characters, for readable results:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freetype-devel/2010-12/msg00021.html

During the registration of them to tricky font lists,
I found that these fonts lack ASCII family name. Their
name tables are for MacJapanese (ShiftJIS) and Microsoft
Unicode. In both names, the family names are in Japanese,
not English.
In such case, current FreeType2 replaces non-ASCII
character in non-ASCII family name by "?". Thus,
FT_Face->family_name is set by broken string. There
is a possibility that the different fonts will have
same broken family name. However, the PostScript name of
the fonts I found are still in ASCII.

I think, a few improvements would be possible.

A) If we cannot find ASCII family name from WWS family name,
   preferred family name and (original) family name, try to
   find ASCII name in PostScript name.

B) Non-ASCII characters should not be replaced by "?",
   but escaped, like "\OOO" or "\xXX" or "U+XXXX".

# Using both is possible.

Such changes will invalidate the fontconfig database,
so I want to ask the comment from fontconfig developers/users.

Regards,
mpsuzuki

On 01/07/11 00:45, suzuki toshiya wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Recently I found a group of Japanese fonts that requires
> hinting even for ASCII characters, for readable results:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freetype-devel/2010-12/msg00021.html
> 
> During the registration of them to tricky font lists,
> I found that these fonts lack ASCII family name. Their
> name tables are for MacJapanese (ShiftJIS) and Microsoft
> Unicode. In both names, the family names are in Japanese,
> not English.
> In such case, current FreeType2 replaces non-ASCII
> character in non-ASCII family name by "?". Thus,
> FT_Face->family_name is set by broken string. There
> is a possibility that the different fonts will have
> same broken family name. However, the PostScript name of
> the fonts I found are still in ASCII.
> 
> I think, a few improvements would be possible.
Generally, we don''t care if a font does not have an ASCII name.  What
we care
about is that the name and the name encoding are consistent and hence we can
decode and meaningfully represent the name in Unicode.  Why would that fail
with these fonts?

behdad
> A) If we cannot find ASCII family name from WWS family name,
>    preferred family name and (original) family name, try to
>    find ASCII name in PostScript name.
> 
> B) Non-ASCII characters should not be replaced by "?",
>    but escaped, like "\OOO" or "\xXX" or
"U+XXXX".
> 
> # Using both is possible.
> 
> Such changes will invalidate the fontconfig database,
> so I want to ask the comment from fontconfig developers/users.
> 
> Regards,
> mpsuzuki
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Freetype-devel mailing list
> Freetype-devel at nongnu.org
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/freetype-devel
>

On Fri, 2011-01-07 at 14:45 +0900, suzuki toshiya wrote:
> During the registration of them to tricky font lists,
> I found that these fonts lack ASCII family name. Their
> name tables are for MacJapanese (ShiftJIS) and Microsoft
> Unicode. In both names, the family names are in Japanese,
> not English.
> In such case, current FreeType2 replaces non-ASCII
> character in non-ASCII family name by "?". Thus,
> FT_Face->family_name is set by broken string. There
> is a possibility that the different fonts will have
> same broken family name. However, the PostScript name of
> the fonts I found are still in ASCII.
This happens with a lot of fonts. I think the issue is that you''re
using
FT_Face->family_name by default rather than as a last resort. At least
that was my mistake. ;-)

I''m not sure what you''re trying to do or what your
requirements are but
wouldn''t it be better to get the info you need directly from
FontConfig?
or at least as much of it as possible.

For example, using FcConfigAppFontAddFile() and FcFreeTypeQueryFace()

On Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:56:37 -0500
Jerry Casiano <jerrycasiano at gmail.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 2011-01-07 at 14:45 +0900, suzuki toshiya wrote:
>
>> During the registration of them to tricky font lists,
>> I found that these fonts lack ASCII family name. Their
>> name tables are for MacJapanese (ShiftJIS) and Microsoft
>> Unicode. In both names, the family names are in Japanese,
>> not English.
>> In such case, current FreeType2 replaces non-ASCII
>> character in non-ASCII family name by "?". Thus,
>> FT_Face->family_name is set by broken string. There
>> is a possibility that the different fonts will have
>> same broken family name. However, the PostScript name of
>> the fonts I found are still in ASCII.
>
>This happens with a lot of fonts. I think the issue is that you''re
using
>FT_Face->family_name by default rather than as a last resort. At least
>that was my mistake. ;-)
>
>I''m not sure what you''re trying to do or what your
requirements are but
>wouldn''t it be better to get the info you need directly from
FontConfig?
>or at least as much of it as possible.
Ah, I''m sorry for poor explanation.

What I''m trying to do is: a patch for FreeType2 library to change
the default FT_Face->family_name when a TrueType/OpenType font
without ASCII family name is given. My concern was that such
change may have any bad impact to fontconfig.

But, as Behdad and you told, it seems that the names handled by
fontconfig are copied from "name" table and not a copy of
FT_Face->family_name. So, I understand as there is no impact at all. 
It is good news!

I have to check other applications which write FT_Face->family_name
as a persistent font identifier into their output files.

Regards,
mpsuzuki

On 01/08/11 12:24, mpsuzuki at hiroshima-u.ac.jp wrote:
> What I''m trying to do is: a patch for FreeType2 library to change
> the default FT_Face->family_name when a TrueType/OpenType font
> without ASCII family name is given. My concern was that such
> change may have any bad impact to fontconfig.
> 
> But, as Behdad and you told, it seems that the names handled by
> fontconfig are copied from "name" table and not a copy of
> FT_Face->family_name. So, I understand as there is no impact at all. 
> It is good news!
If you check fcfreetype.c, fontconfig uses face->family_name as a last
resort.
 At any rate, improving it can''t be bad.  If FreeType produces question
marks
for unknown family names, maybe we should filter those out in fontconfig.  Can
you do that?

behdad