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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Suggest installing more fonts?
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2020 14:07:55 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <83y2k6v378.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87wnzqa1be.fsf@gnus.org> (message from Lars Ingebrigtsen on Fri,  16 Oct 2020 12:54:13 +0200)

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2020 12:54:13 +0200
> 
> I think, over the years, the most common question users have that has an
> easy-to-fix solution is: "Why is Emacs displaying boxes for some of
> these characters I'm seeing?"  The solution is "install some more
> fonts", of course.
> 
> But could Emacs be more helpful here?  That is, could we somehow,
> unobtrusively, tell the users this when Emacs is trying to display a
> character that it has no fonts for?

That box with the hex code is our way of telling the users that.  What
else can be better, given that there could be more than one such
character?

> For added helpfulness, would it be possible for Emacs to be even more
> specific?  Like, say "sudo apt install fonts-noto-color-emoji
> fonts-symbola", or whatever, depending on the system.

For that, you'd need a database of fonts per OS and per release (and I
think on GNU systems this will have to depend on the distro as well?),
and you'd need to maintain that database.  Who around here knows
enough about fonts on different systems to maintain such a database?

> Fonts change over the years, so this would be an added maintenance
> burden...  but they don't change a lot: New general-use fonts with good
> coverage aren't created very often.

IME, the fonts do change quite a lot between releases.

> (Perhaps distribution packagers could also push more fonts as part of
> the Emacs installation, but that'd probably be more controversial.)

Yes, it's the responsibility of the distro to make sure the necessary
fonts are installed when Emacs is installed.  If MS-Windows can have
all the fonts to cover the supported scripts, so can GNU/Linux
distros.  They should make sure each Emacs user has fonts to cover all
the scripts known to Emacs.

I think the best we can do here is (a) add more fonts to the default
fontset (it isn't trivial, as quite a few good fonts aren't free); and
(b) have a command to report which of the fonts mentioned in the
default fontset aren't available.



  reply	other threads:[~2020-10-16 11:07 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 118+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-10-16 10:54 Suggest installing more fonts? Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-16 11:07 ` Eli Zaretskii [this message]
2020-10-16 11:30   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 12:50     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 12:59       ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 13:13         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 14:38           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 15:48             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 16:09               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 18:48                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 19:40                   ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-17  6:57                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 13:49                       ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-17 14:08                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 15:04                           ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-17 15:18                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 13:24     ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-16 14:08       ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 15:34         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 15:51           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 13:24   ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-16 13:30     ` Rudolf Schlatte
2020-10-17  6:14       ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-16 14:41     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17  6:23       ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-17  8:55         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-18  8:03           ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-18 15:21             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-19  8:31               ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-19 14:50                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-20 10:28                   ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-20 14:31                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-21 10:46                       ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-21 11:31                         ` Michael Albinus
2020-10-21 11:58                           ` Stefan Kangas
2020-10-21 14:54                           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-21 16:03                             ` tofu-help-mode (was: Suggest installing more fonts?) Stefan Monnier
2020-10-22 12:07                               ` tofu-help-mode Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-22 15:21                                 ` tofu-help-mode Stefan Monnier
2020-10-23 10:46                                   ` tofu-help-mode Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-21 17:46                             ` Suggest installing more fonts? Michael Albinus
2020-10-21 18:14                               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-22  7:27                                 ` Michael Albinus
2020-10-22 13:09                                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 16:53                                     ` Michael Albinus
2020-10-23 18:13                                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-25 11:47                                         ` Michael Albinus
2020-10-25 15:19                                           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-21 17:25                           ` Juri Linkov
2020-10-21 11:59                         ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2020-10-21 12:05                           ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-21 12:31                             ` Stephen Berman
2020-10-21 14:47                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-21 20:19                           ` Rasmus
2020-10-22  2:34                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-22 12:34                               ` Rasmus
2020-10-22 13:35                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-21 20:19                           ` Rasmus
2020-10-22 11:32                           ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-22 12:02                             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-22 12:08                               ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-22 12:29                                 ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-22 13:31                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23  3:49                                   ` Richard Stallman
2020-10-23  6:59                                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23  8:28                                       ` Andreas Schwab
2020-10-23 11:01                                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 15:50                                           ` Andreas Schwab
2020-10-23 16:38                                             ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-23 18:03                                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 18:43                                               ` Robert Pluim
2020-10-23 19:31                                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-24  9:35                                                   ` Robert Pluim
2020-10-23 10:45                                   ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-23 11:07                                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 14:59                                       ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-23 17:56                                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 18:13                                           ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-23 18:23                                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-23 18:36                                               ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-23 18:18                                           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-22 13:16                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-22 13:40                               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-22 13:52                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-22 14:20                                   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-22 15:50                                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 18:48 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-16 19:13   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-16 19:37     ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-17  6:37       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 13:44         ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-16 19:42   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 19:49     ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-16 22:14       ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-16 22:35         ` Stefan Monnier
2020-10-16 23:02           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17  7:46             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 11:21               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 12:13                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 13:09                   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 13:33                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 16:09                       ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 16:30                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 17:37                           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 17:58                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 18:36                               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 18:50                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 18:56                                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 19:18                                   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-10-17 19:33                                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-18  8:06                           ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-18 14:55                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-17 17:30                 ` Drew Adams
2020-10-18  4:12             ` Richard Stallman
2020-10-18 14:45               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-10-20 22:46       ` Stephen Leake
2020-10-17  6:31   ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-10-17  9:08     ` Eli Zaretskii

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