Re: A patch for enforcing double-width CJK character display

[Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org>]

> Comparing to normal GTK applications (cairo rendering backend), it's
> too wide in Emacs.

This is probably my `fault'.  In FreeType 2.4.6, I've applied a patch
which fixed a very longstanding issue of applying non-TrueType metrics
to TrueType fonts.  A consequence of this patch was that (a) some
fonts suddenly rendered larger or smaller, and that (b) the advance
width and line heights changed noticeable.[1]

I still think that the patch is correct, making the fonts use the
advance widths and heights as designed, but it seems that many people
don't like this `corrected' appearance; over the years, they have got
used to the (usually) wider appearance.  As a consequence, some
GNU/Linux distribution maintainers decided to not work on fixing the
cause (this is, making editors or terminal applications apply
user-defined vertical and horizontal padding, or make the underlying
frameworks provide means for doing that easily).  Instead, they are
fixing the symptoms by undoing the FreeType patch in the
distributions...


    Werner