Issue 10347

DL->CP: Would you please check this?

cp->hdu: on win the system ui font is probably the first to ask for
glyph fallback. does that sound like a plan ?  

Confirmed. 

HDU->CP: the problem here doesn't seem to be that there is no glyphs  
in the font used, but that the glyphs themselves "just look bad".  
Using the system font for glyph fallback is probably a good idea. An  
even better idea would be to revise the political decision NOT to  
use the system font as UI font directly...  
  
HDU->SForbes: The problem with OOo is that no fonts are shipped with  
it so we are relying on whatever font happens to be there. On Win  
platforms it is quite easy to determine the system font, on other  
platforms the concept of a system font is often not even known.  
  
A temporary workaround is to enable a font replacement in  
Tools -> Options -> General Settings -> Fonts  
from "Andale Sans UI" to your favourite font.  
  
If you have a version of OOo based on a source base 644 or higher  
you can instead enable  
Tools->Options-> General Settings ->Accesibility-> Use System Font  
  

*** Issue 9794 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

When changing the font, I noticed that the default was set as
"automatic" What font was it using in practice? "Andale Sans UI"? Does
"Andale Sans UI" even have Hebrew glyphs? If not- did it fallback to
another font?

Shoshannah, 
what OOo version do you refer to ? 
Where/How did you change the fonts ?

The glyph repertoir of the "Andale Sans UI" is variable but it does
not contain Hebrew glyphs. Since it is a font that ships with
StarOffice you have a good chance to not having it on your system at
all. If "Andale Sans UI" is installed on your system it will be used,
falling back is work in progress. If it is not a fixed list of fonts
will be checked. The first font found will be selected.

"enable ui font" seems to solve the problem (cvs build 20030223).
Two questions:
* Why isn't this option enabled by default?
* You wrote:
> If it is not a fixed list of fonts
> will be checked. The first font found will be selected

What fonts are in the list? Is it possible to make sure that the ones
selected for Hebrew have decent glyphs?

please check the file
    share/registry/data/org/openoffice/VCL.xcu
in your office installation. You can tweak the settings for 'UI_SANS'
for language 'he'. To provide a good font list for
Hebrew/Arabic/Thai/... is still work in progress. If you have
suggestions please add them to this issue.

Currently we can query the UI font for Gnome-2.0 and Windows but not
for all systems. 

'enable UI font' is off probably because this makes sense for
StarOffice and so far nobody complained about OpenOffice :-( 
Please file an RFE against the UI module.

Be patient ;-) CTL versions are still work in progress

cp->hdu: probably duplicate to the "hebrew filename displays as
squares"  bug, please have a look.

>probably duplicate to the "hebrew filename displays as
squares"

I dubt it, as that other bug appears regardless of the ui font I use
(i.e., the workaround mentioned here does noit solve that one)

HDU->SF: I agree with CP that OOo should default to use the "system UI
font" on platforms where a system default fonts exits; especially for
OOo, because the few fonts in the OOo download are quite limited.
Would you like to file an issue against the UI component for this?

Other than that I think we should try to use good default fonts for
any language on any platform. Are the font defaults for hebrew in the
share/registry/data/org/openoffice/VCL.xcu reasonable? Look for the
node oor:name="he", unfortunately the responsible developer for
VCL.xcu didn't provide any docs about its file format, but the
property names like "UI_SANS" are almost self explaining.

(reminder to myself: the often mentioned "hebrew filename displays as
squares" is issue 16281)

SF>HDU:

>Would you like to file an issue against the UI component for this?

This is issue #22792

> Are the font defaults for hebrew in the
share/registry/data/org/openoffice/VCL.xcu reasonable?

Not really. The first default is Tahoma, which on some linux systems
and on MacOS does not have Hebrew glyphs by default (see issue #21447
issue #20931 is porbably also related). Another problem with tahoma is
that it's x-hight is much larger then other fonts, making it look
bigger then the other text around it. 

On linux it would be best to default to the culmus fonts
(http://culmus.sourceforge.net/ ) which come by default with redhat
and mandrake, and are avalible (and installed) by most other distros
as well.

On windows we should default to the MS core fonts which have Hebrew
(probably arial and times new roman will be best)

the real problem is on MacOS, where the default win/linux fonts are
not avalible (the mac version of arial and times new roman does not
have Hebrew glyphs). In that case, it will be best to default to the
Hebrew fonts that comes with the OS: Lucida granda, Raanan, corsiva etc.)

 

Thank you for the info about the Mac fonts. Is it ok if I just add
"Raanan" as default font for the UI, for headings, Impress and Calc?

I doubt that it is a good idea to use the Culmus fonts as default
fonts on UNX platforms. They are Type 1 fonts instead of OpenType and
one has to use fancy PUA (private use area) tricks for proper shaping.
Having some of these PUA unicodes in documents or even the UI strings
will probably cause a support nightmare. Unfortunately TTF versions of
Culmus are not planned (http://culmus.sourceforge.net/faq.html#nottf)
which would be a first step to OpenType versions of them.

Other than that I think the "Miriam Mono" font would be the nicest
candidate for a Hebrew UI font?

thinking more about mac, I think that Lucida grande is better then
raanana.
* it is sans-serif while raanana is serif.
* it is used thrughout the OS as the UI font, so that why OO with feel
more mac like.

For linux, I would prefrer a non-mono font, so Nachlieli would be a
better choice IMO.

Ok. In CWS vcl17 the LucidaGrande and Nachlieli fonts are tried before
the other fonts for Hebrew.

HDU->US: Please verify in CWS vcl17. It's a little tricky. Start with installing
the Culmus fonts (especially the Nachlieli one is important)...

us->sf: could you attach the LucidaGrande for testing.

us->hdu: "somethings on the way to paradise' gone wrong":
Linux: hebrew text input works like a charme in Writer, but arabic...
Glyphs are painted one over another.
Pls. contact me, so we can both evaluate this. 
Thanks a lot.

Font fall back in VCL.xcu looks good nevertheless.

The arabic fontspacing problem is now issue 25565.

Verified.

Changing RESOLUTION to FIXED in order to mark issue as VERIFIED.

Issue VERIFIED.

Re-verified on master workspace src680_m50.