Re: [DejaVu-fonts] Metrics, a strange glyph and superscripting

[Nocturnal D. <noc...@gm...>]

Timon Christl wrote:
> Hello!
>
>   
hi timon,
> I'm using the DejaVu fonts on Windows for pretty much anything. I
> finally upgraded from some 1.1.x version to 2.4.1 yesterday, and found
> that some metrics seem to have changed. This by itself is not a bad
> thing, there can't be progress without change.
>
> It's not so much the glyph metrics, but the line metrics that bother
> me. Text set in DejaVu Sans appears tighter now than with the old
> version, making it more difficult for the eye to jump from line to
> line. This is important for websites (my default font in Firefox is
> DejaVu Sans), and it is also important for the overall Windows GUI.
> Especially menus are now a bit harder to read. The difference between
> the old and the new version is just 1 or 2px at 10pt, but it IS
> noticeable and makes the whole thing somewhat uncomfortable to read.
>   
to be frank, i can't find anything strange in your screenshots. are you 
perhaps referring to the kerning?
> I have two images ready to illustrate my point. The first is
> http://www.christltimon.de/img/dejavufonts/linemetrics1.png which
> shows a typical context menu in Windows Explorer. The second is
> http://www.christltimon.de/img/dejavufonts/linemetrics1.png and it
> shows a small part of a webpage on my local webserver, rendered in
> Firefox. In both images the text appears a bit too compressed to me.
>
> Another thing I wanted to mention is that 2.4.1 seems to have some
> ligature stuff going on. When I write "fi" in DejaVu Sans, Windows XP
> renders it as some rune. not as "fi". Not all programs are affected,
> for example OpenOffice is OK. I've also two images for this. The first
> is http://www.christltimon.de/img/dejavufonts/rune1.png and shows the
> OpenOffice 2.0 submenu of the Windows Startmenu. To help identifying
> the glyph I increased the font size to 24 and took the second image,
> http://www.christltimon.de/img/dejavufonts/rune2.png. It shows a
> desktop icon for a file with the same "file.txt". This is clearly a
> germanic rune (the one that the SS used in the Third Reich). BUT it
> seems that DejaVu Sans does not even contain that glyph. I don't know
> if this is a problem with the Windows font renderer or a problem with
> the DejaVu fonts, I justed wanted to tell you of it.
>   
in windows there may be some problems after installing/upgrading a font, 
which usually go away after restart. in this case it is a caching bug, 
since new characters where introduced in the meantime the glyph 
positions (within the font) shifted and are no longer valid (openoffice 
does not have this problem since 1. it loads the whole font into memory 
each time and 2. it does not support such features as ligatures). and it 
is not a rune btw but a greek letter (koppa).

try the following: go to the fonts folder. delete all dejavu font files. 
restart the computer. then extract the downloaded files onto your 
desktop (do NOT extract them directly to c:\windows\fonts!)
> Finally, superscripting. When I superscript text with <sup> in HTML
> and the font is set to DejaVu Sans, Firefox renders it with slightly
> smaller but not superscripted. I had the same problem with BitStream
> Vera Sans and I was glad that the first versions of DejaVu Sans seemed
> to have fixed that, but now the problem is back. It could be a bug in
> the Geck layout engine that powers Firefox, but since other fonts work
> OK and since the early versions of DejaVu worked OK it is most likely
> a problem in the font.
>   
i can verify that, there seems to be some regression (on windows xp, 
firefox 1.5). can someone look into it? the problem is not restricted to 
sans however. mono and serif are also affected (see screenshot).
> I hope this feedback is helpful. I'd like to see DejaVu perform as
> well on Windows as it does on free OSes.
regards, gee fung

ps: i included a screenshot and the test html