Re: Lost antialias?

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>>> What font should we use for variable-pitch?  Bitstream Vera Sans?
>>> I'd put "Sans-Serif" first, so as to re-use fontconfig's default.
>>> Similarly for fixed-pitch (not sure if that's "mono" or "monospace" or
>>> what).
>
>> Fontconfig's generic handling seems aimed more at finding something
>> "usable" rather than something "good", and the ordering seems almost
>> random (Bitstream Vera comes before Dejavu, even though the latter is
>> more or less a better version of the former, and on my system "Sans
>> Serif" resolves to "Kochi Gothic", apparently simply because I have that
>> installed).
>
> Hmm... so what do other apps use?  I think we should aim to use whatever
> other applications use by default, since there's a better chance that
> this has been correctly setup (and if not, at least we won't be worse
> than those other apps and we can just say "sorry, not our fault").
>
> E.g. what does Firefox use?  (or Vim ;-)?

Actually I was mistaken about "Kochi Gothic" -- it seems to use it
because I have LANG set to "ja_JP".

If I use:

   LANG=C HOME=/tmp fc-match "Serif"

then I get "Bitstream Vera Serif" (etc for "Sans", and "Mono").

So I guess the choice is "reasonable", except for the ordering of Vera
before Dejavu.  I don't know the reason for that offhand, but I imagine
perhaps it's because Vera is used as a general default these days, and
Dejavu is something still installed as an optional package.

Using "Mono", "Sans", or "Serif" as families all return similar results,
so I suppose they would be reasonable defaults.

Most of the substitution seems to be done by config files in /etc/fonts,
and I'm not sure how things are on other systems; I'm using Debian
unstable.

[Whether the above changing of default for LANG=ja_JP is really
desirable or not, I dunno, but I guess it's going to yield more familiar
results when mixing CJK with ascii characters.  Anyway, as you say,
"not our problem".]

-Miles

-- 
Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state
religion.