[FFe] Restore "Ubuntu Medium" weights in Ubuntu's binary .deb

ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.80-0ubuntu2) precise; urgency=low

  * Don't ship Ubuntu Medium ("Ubuntu Light" "Bold") because
    of issues with the font/toolkit stacks on Ubuntu not working.
    Workaround for (LP: #744812).

 -- Florian Boucault <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:02:09 +0000

I think this should be deferred for the next cycle. UI Freeze is on Quantal and re-adding Medium will regress bug 744812, breaking Qt apps like Ubuntu One.

On 12/09/12 10:18, Adolfo Jayme Barrientos wrote:
> I think this should be deferred for the next cycle. UI Freeze is on
> Quantal and re-adding Medium will regress bug 744812, breaking Qt apps
> like Ubuntu One.

Unless we add it, I don't believe those apps will ever get fixed.

Please add it and fix the bugs.

Mark

(Note: Moving to the distro; Everything is there in the source package; it was uploaded with two files in the binary on the basis that Unity-2D's toolkit reacted quite badly. Those applications that pull matching service via fontconfig and also get upset at more than four weights per family in every other advanced typeface)

AFAICR, this QAed fine for Unity-3D prior to 12.04 LTS; and so I wouldn't expect anything else this time. If somebody can QA this with engineering builds (of Unity) I'd like to see the full build go back into the archive. It's an oversight on my part that I didn't back out the makefile comments and upload on the first day of Q opening.

It's not really the case of adding anything that, but restoring the normality of having the full build.

Hell yes.

Re: Popey et al; I'm happy to prepare and upload, but I need help with the QA from the Unity side (I'm travelling and don't have a Q-latest machine with me).

I tried the package sil2100 made which has the medium font in. The dash itself looks no different with the addition of the font. I can help you with further testing.

We need the paperwork (FFE/UIE) for this doing too.

dash without the medium font installed

dash with medium font installed...

Paul/John: Is there additional work required outside the installation of the font (and identifying qt/fontconfig related bugs) to enable the actual use of this font in Unity?

Raised on #ubuntu-doc, requesting comment + subscribed:

  http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2012/09/14/%23ubuntu-doc.html

On behalf of doc-team we are reviewing this and will provide a response shortly.

@popey; the reason that the Dash currently looks no different with the Medium font installed is that we need to font installed before we change the font weights in the dash so that we can test. So once the font is in we will update the relevant Dash elements.

Thanks for the confirmation John, that the Screenshots are the same and this proposed patch does *not* by itself change anything visually in the default Unity experience. I wouldn't wish the analysis and fixing of this particular distro-packaging oversight to get side-tracked.

I think the second sentence might fall "Enabling theme- and application-developers to be more creative in producing innovative human-optimised interfaces for the default software set shipping in Ubuntu"! That would a separate issue, which can be proposed subsequently by the Unity team, based on its own merits, and with the relevant UIF applications made to the doc-team.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

FFe request requires "New" before subscribing 'ubuntu-release'.

+1 from the Docs Team for adding the additional font weight.

On the other hand, I think it's too late to be tweaking the fonts used in the Dash. Documentation string freeze is still scheduled for next Thursday which means we must start working on screenshots this weekend.

It seems this was approved in comment #3.

Please go ahead.

Laney: ta, thanks for that.

Are there concrete plans on how to fix Qt to deal with this change?

Please don't land this until the Qt issues are addressed.

Is there a good scope of impact on what we'll be breaking with this known? I've seen the comments in bug 744812 - is that the extent of it? or has someone done further testing with it?

I don't know if it's well characterized or not. Unfortunately, I have limited connectivity today and can't really look into it.

What was happening in earlier pre-releases (that shipped Ubuntu medium) was that all Qt/KDE apps had a bold font (like here: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/67192564/qt-font-fail.png, it affects U1 control panel for example).

This is not the only issue as people also reported problems with LibreOffice, for example.

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-font-family-sources - 0.80-0ubuntu3+console

---------------
ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.80-0ubuntu3+console) quantal; urgency=low

  * Restore shipping of Medium and Medium Italic for the binary package.
    (LP: #1048600)
 -- Paul Sladen <email address hidden> Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:10:00 +0300

So we don't care about regressions?

I certainly do. I'll advocate for the revert if this causes insurmountable problems (it's a simple one-line packaging change to not install the file).

It makes the U1 control panel use a bold font. (I believe this is the same as was observed before)

all kde apps now use bold fonts :S

20/09 14:56:47 <ScottK> FYI, thanks to the recent "improvements" in the Ubuntu fonts, Kubuntu is dropping them for Quantal.

The release team is now considering reverting this change unless the related bugs (u1/kde) are fixed before we start spinning the first beta2 candidates.

Please debug and fix the known issues or find people who can. Re-opening the bug for now.

It's a Qt issue, not U1/KDE.

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-font-family-sources - 0.80-0ubuntu4

---------------
ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.80-0ubuntu4) quantal; urgency=low

  * Revert (yes, again) the shipping of Medium. It causes too many bugs this
    late in the cycle. We'll flop once more at the very start of R cycle. (LP:
    #1048600)
 -- Iain Lane <email address hidden> Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:51:56 +0100

Mark this as open, due to revert.

Hey,

I've put info about a possible workaround for Qt and packages for testing in the related bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-family/+bug/744812/comments/53

The patch itself is in the next comment:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-family/+bug/744812/comments/54

Reopening the quantal component, the sabdfl suggested we should try harder to get that in this cycle if possible so we will do that...

sabdfl'ing is only relevant on the record. Mark told me to get this in" is not sufficient.

Scott, here it is for the record.

The light and medium font are our standard font for all content. Medium
has been bumped from the release multiple times, driving design folk
around the bend because software folk don't address the bug early in the
cycle, then say we're too late. We're not too late. Please include the
medium weight, and crystallize out the relevant software fix from folk
who care about the software.

Mark

Thanks, Scott.

Thanks for following up in the bug. FTR, the fix for Qt is in the archive and
we'll test it today to verify it works with the medium weight. I'm not sure
what else needs fixing.

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-font-family-sources - 0.80-0ubuntu5

---------------
ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.80-0ubuntu5) quantal; urgency=low

  [ Timo Jyrinki ]
  * Add modified Ubuntu-M.ttf binary (LP: #1054204)
  * Restore installing Ubuntu-M* (LP: #1048600)

  [ Iain Lane ]
  * Modify Ubuntu-MI.ttf in the same way (set "Family Name"), otherwise Ubuntu
    Medium Italic gets selected for Ubuntu Light Italic in LO.
 -- Iain Lane <email address hidden> Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:20:49 +0100

There's apparently an issue in FontConfig which affects LibreOffice. I'm
sure it will get settled in the RC period.

@Mark: The LibreOffice issues should have been fixed in the latest update (0.80-0ubuntu5), see bug 1054204.

@Laney & Timo: what is the plan for R if shipping with the diff as below? To (a) revert it after release, (b) hoping to ship the metadata-renamed .ttfs in perpetuity.

@Dmitry: for clarity, the change appears to have been made by adjusting the .ttfs rather than source code. (The are arguments both for and against this which I'd like to stay out of)

sfddiff --exact {/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/,}Ubuntu-M.ttf

Names
 The family name differs. In /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-M.ttf it is (Ubuntu Light) while in /home/sladen/tmp/asdf/latest/Ubuntu-M.ttf it is (Ubuntu Medium)

sfddiff --exact {/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/,}Ubuntu-MI.ttf

Names
 The family name differs. In /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-MI.ttf it is (Ubuntu Light) while in /home/sladen/tmp/asdf/latest/Ubuntu-MI.ttf it is (Ubuntu Medium)

Even if I'm not back, my offer stands (as per Qt), in that if somebody knowing the LO codebase can debug and find me at the appropriate set of functions/files I can try to offer up a patch.

re: comment #43: Subscribed Björn who is the maintainer of LO in Ubuntu and might be able to help

The preferred result is that the "bold of Ubuntu Light is Ubuntu
Medium", can you confirm this is the case in Qt apps now?

Qt lists Light as a choice under font style for the Ubuntu font (along with light, regular, medium, bold, italic, italic bold) rather than as a separate font. So it doesn't let you do "bold of Ubuntu Light".

On 08/10/12 17:53, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> Qt lists Light as a choice under font style for the Ubuntu font (along
> with light, regular, medium, bold, italic, italic bold) rather than as a
> separate font. So it doesn't let you do "bold of Ubuntu Light".

OK. That's the right story for apps which support multiple weights of
the same face, like Scribus, and is great. We were hoping that simpler
apps, word processors etc, would present them as Ubuntu / Ubuntu Light,
two faces with the usual bold / italic / bold-italic options.

Mark