FW 5.3.x - 5.7.x Fonts Hack

[NiLuJe]

I might have ID'd a potential issue that may explain Mailyfesux's experience. It's a bit of a domino effect, and something else (potentially linked to custom fonts, though) would have to break at the right time, but, still...

I'm running some more tests, see if some changes help...

To be perfectly honest, since the K3, this has always been potentially iffy (and there's so much potentially broken data [fonts] out there to feed it, that it's impossible to cover all bases), so I'm usually ready with an SSH shell when I'm playing with this stuff. This'll be made clearer in the doc.

[NiLuJe]

Released v0.2.N, with the aforementioned changes, in addition to stuff that was waiting in the wings (mostly a faster font overrides menu rebuild).

[NiLuJe]

A quick update to 0.3 to match the rest of my stuff with updated binaries.

[eureka]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Also, the KF8 reader is restarted, so the initial testing of new fonts in all kinds of content is much faster because it doesn't initially require a full restart.

Thanks for sharing observation. Now it's obvious, but earlier I always had been stunned by reports where framework restart wasn't enough for discovering new fonts and full restart was required. (But I don't use alt fonts trick at all, so absence of user fonts in KF8 content wasn't a problem for me )

[hfpop]

I have the KUAL FontConfig extension installed. In order to install this font hack do I need to do something in particular, i.e. some uninstall of the former? Thank you.

A second question: I tried Gentium Book Basic and Libre Baskerville with KUAL FontConfig, and the results are far from the pictures in the first posts (Gentium is way thinner, and Libre Baskerville shows strange drawings). Is this because of not using the BCI FreeType override?

Thank you for all the support.

[NiLuJe]

@eureka: . For some strange reason, the fcscan (or whatever it's called) search bar command also switches the rootfs rw for no good reason, since the fontconfig cache lives in /var (tmpfs).

@hfpop: OTOH, I can't remember where in the fontconfig chain is the KUAL FontConfig stuff inserted, but it shouldn't hurt, at worse it'll be redundant. To be perfectly sure, I'd uninstall it, but YMMV .

Where did you get Gentium & Libre Baskerville? IIRC, Gentium is manually hinted, and the build from SIL is identical to the one on Google's Fonts Directory, so unless you have a weird export/mod, it should look *roughly* the same (it *is* a bit smaller than other fonts though). It does get a bit sharper (and thus thinner) when hinted with a v38 native hinter (what the SPR FT override does, among other crazy/stupid stuff I wanted to test), so depending on how much Amazon's mangled FreeType, that might not be completely surprising.

No idea about Libre Baskerville, but they're not on the list of fonts I switched BCI off for, even though Libre Baskerville does also embed native hinting.
What I *can* say about Libre Baskerville is that it crashes with Amazon's FT on my K5, so, err, I really can't tell you how it looks without an override .

FWIW, the font in the first screenshot is the Palatino bundled w/ the PaperWhite, not Libre Baskerville. I switched to Libre Baskerville on my Touch, but I don't think I posted a screenshot. The second one *is* Gentium *Book* Basic (not Gentium Basic, which looks great too, but is a bit thinner), though, which is what I settled on on my PW, because, among other things, it handles the no-black-flash ghosting pretty well.

[richy1989]

I from china
Could you tell me how to make the English fonts hidden but
reserve the CJK fonts?

[NiLuJe]

@richy1989: Check the fontconfig file for the cjk hiding stuff in linkfonts/etc/conf.avail, and adapt it. It might be a terribly awful idea, though, because I have no idea how the framework will behave if it can't find some stuff it expects (Caecilia, Futura, Helvetica, ...).

[richy1989]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@richy1989: Check the fontconfig file for the cjk hiding stuff in linkfonts/etc/conf.avail, and adapt it. It might be a terribly awful idea, though, because I have no idea how the framework will behave if it can't find some stuff it expects (Cacecilia, Futura, Helvetica, ...).

I used USE_ALT_FONTS with FontConfig,
now,I hide most of the unuseful fonts.It is success.
I got the screenshot.
At the same time,
I found that the Kindle OS's UI(the manu,the title of the Dialog) is used in the font 'Futura'.

So,could you help to solve these problem?
1.When I open the document with KF8,it become a bit slower after I used the USE_ALT_FONTS.
2.Is the principle of Fonts Hack different from the USE_ALT_FONTS?So the Fonts Hack will make it running faster?
3.What's the family name of the font I annotated in the picture?(the red box)

[NiLuJe]

@richy1989:

1/ Nope, first opening of the Aa menu, yeah, but nothing more than that (at least for Latin scripts, but the default rendering stack *might* choke/struggle a bit with some custom CJK fonts, can't say, not my native script, so I haven't checked, and I'm using a custom FreeType anyway ).

2/ Nope, see the third post in this thread. Although a custom FT override *might* help.

3/ Err, exactly what it says on the box . The Aa menu renders the family name next to the radio checkbox in said family (with the exception of embedded fonts, where it just says 'Publisher Fonts' in Helvetica Neue or Futura).

[richy1989]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@richy1989:

1/ Nope, first opening of the Aa menu, yeah, but nothing more than that (at least for Latin scripts, but the default rendering stack *might* choke/struggle a bit with some custom CJK fonts, can't say, not my native script, so I haven't checked, and I'm using a custom FreeType anyway ).

2/ Nope, see the third post in this thread. Although a custom FT override *might* help.

3/ Err, exactly what it says on the box . The Aa menu renders the family name next to the radio checkbox in said family (with the exception of embedded fonts, where it just says 'Publisher Fonts' in Helvetica Neue or Futura).

Now I tried to hide the font 'condensed' in my font box.
But it faild.
So I think the font condensed's family name is not what it says on the box.
And I found that the 'condensed' isn't appear in your font box
How do you get it?

[NiLuJe]

@richy1989:

AFAICT, we can't do much about it. It's Caecilia Condensed, and it's handled in a very weird & specific way.

[richy1989]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@richy1989:

AFAICT, we can't do much about it. It's Caecilia Condensed, and it's handled in a very weird & specific way.

After my my efforts,I hide the font 'condensed',even the font 'Helvetica Neue LT
'!
Now it goes well.
Just use the FontConfig

The file extensions/fontconfig/fontlist/fonts.txt includes all the extra fonts that appear when the USE_ALT_FONTS file is present.
All fonts in the list will be hidden!

Let me show the latest screenshot.
It is clearer!

[ixtab]

That's what you call "clear"? All that I see is some funny symbols which make no sense.

(SCNR. Just kidding )

[richy1989]

Originally Posted by ixtab

That's what you call "clear"? All that I see is some funny symbols which make no sense.

(SCNR. Just kidding )

Maybe it is very diffcult to understand Chinese for foreigners.
In fact,it is very interesting!