Waree font too high compared to Tahoma

The fallback is to serve browsing Thai web pages that explicitly use Tahoma, as Waree is the closest match we have.

However, I didn't aware of the existence of ttf-tahoma-replacement package, as I uploaded this package at Debian, where ttf-tahoma-replacement is not available.

Feel free to patch it as you think suitable for Ubuntu. I can apply that to Debian once ttf-tahoma-replacement is available there.

BTW, there is a newer package version (1:0.4.13-1) of thaifonts-scalable in Debian unstable which ships 2 LP bug fixes from upstream (LP #387872, #313427). It should be nice to have it in Ubuntu as well, if it's still allowed for Karmic. Otherwise, just patching the current version should be fine.

For the record, anyway, ttf-tahoma-replacement provides only limited set of glyphs. It won't serve Thai people.

Removing the rule will result in fontconfig implicit fallback for missing glyphs when rendering Thai pages, which can end up with any font, depending on what is installed. Fortunately, it's Waree for my system. But for others, I don't know.

But it's not that serious. Waree itself is not the exact replacement anyway. So, I'm OK with the fallback removal.

But please keep other synthesizing rules in the file intact. They are still useful for Thai people.

Wait. On a second thought, I don't think the removal is necessary. Users can get Tahoma replacement from ttf-tahoma-replacement by installing it. And Waree won't be effective, except for missing glyphs. Only on Tahoma missing is Waree fallen back to.

What's wrong with that?

In the default installation ttf-thai-tlwg is installed, but ttf-tahoma-replacement isn't.
So websites using Tahoma will be displayed using Waree which is 6 px higher than Tahoma.
That causes a big gap between lines and makes website look ugly.
User won't know that installing ttf-tahoma-replacement will help and they shouldn't have to
install additional packages to fix it.

Then, why not making it installed by default?

Without both ttf-tahoma-replacement and the fallback rule, What font is chosen for Tahoma? (It's still Waree for my system, Debian sid).

> Then, why not making it installed by default?
tahoma-replacement is necessary for wine but I doubt that the quality of the font is good enough to be installed by default.

> Without both ttf-tahoma-replacement and the fallback rule, What font is chosen
> for Tahoma? (It's still Waree for my system, Debian sid).
On Ubuntu Karmic it's DejaVu, but of course you can change the default font in your browser if you still want to use Waree.

I suggest syncing 1:0.4.13-1 from Debian and applying a patch to remove the fallback:

thaifonts-scalable (1:0.4.13-1ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * Use quilt patching system
  * Remove fallback from Tahoma to Waree (LP: #434054)
    - debian/patches/01_remove_tahoma_fallback.diff

 -- Felix Geyer <email address hidden> Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:16:46 +0200

thaifonts-scalable (1:0.4.13-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * New upstream bugfix release.
    - Fix DTD conformance in fontconfig file. (LP: #387872)
    - More thinkness for bold faces of TlwgTypo and TlwgTypist families.
    - Fix spline direction in several fonts. (LP: #313427)
    - Add variation faces to Purisa.
    - Improve hints for diagonal stems.
    - Improve building system.

 -- Theppitak Karoonboonyanan <email address hidden> Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:15:12 +0700

Can ~ubuntu-release please ACK the new bugfix release from Debian?

Seems fine to me, please go ahead.

This bug was fixed in the package thaifonts-scalable - 1:0.4.13-1ubuntu1

---------------
thaifonts-scalable (1:0.4.13-1ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * Use quilt patching system
  * Remove fallback from Tahoma to Waree (LP: #434054)
    - debian/patches/01_remove_tahoma_fallback.diff

thaifonts-scalable (1:0.4.13-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * New upstream bugfix release.
    - Fix DTD conformance in fontconfig file. (LP: #387872)
    - More thinkness for bold faces of TlwgTypo and TlwgTypist families.
    - Fix spline direction in several fonts. (LP: #313427)
    - Add variation faces to Purisa.
    - Improve hints for diagonal stems.
    - Improve building system.

 -- Felix Geyer <email address hidden> Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:16:46 +0200