From p@u| @end|ng |rom @t@t@@uck|@nd@@c@nz  Wed Apr  8 22:23:26 2020
From: p@u| @end|ng |rom @t@t@@uck|@nd@@c@nz (Paul Murrell)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2020 08:23:26 +1200
Subject: [Rd] Plotmath on Fedora 31 broken with with pango >= 1.44 -
 workarounds?
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Message-ID: <5b1004d9-630e-b860-3d64-53cd41627025@stat.auckland.ac.nz>


Thanks Gabriel.  Simon and Brian are also helping out.  I will start a 
speparate thread for the four of us to coordinate.

Paul

On 8/04/20 3:59 pm, Gabriel Becker wrote:
> Paul et al,
> 
> I will try to do this tonight or tomorrow, though it will not be built 
> with th system tools because I have yet to get that tto work locally 
> (spent a good chunk of this morning trying).
> 
> I will send a separate messaage?regarding those difficulties as well so 
> that we can at least confirm that they are due to a malconfiguration on 
> my part.
> 
> Best,
> ~G
> 
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 7:25 PM Paul Murrell <paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz 
> <mailto:paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     The R-symfam branch (r78176) is now working, for my basic tests, on ...
> 
>     Ubuntu (pango < 1.44)
>     Ubuntu (no pango)
>     Fedora (pango > 1.44)
>     Windows
> 
>     I need help to confirm that this builds on macOS and that the basic
>     tests work ...
> 
>     https://github.com/pmur002/R-symfam-testing
> 
>     Brian has been helping with the build, but I am still looking for
>     someone who can run the tests please.? Happy to be fed PDF files to
>     scrutinize myself;? it's generating the PDF files on macOS that I need
>     help with.
> 
>     Paul
> 
>     On 6/04/20 2:59 pm, Paul Murrell wrote:
>      > Hi
>      >
>      > The R branch ...
>      >
>      > https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-symfam/
>      >
>      > ... is now set up so that it works "out of the box" on Fedora by
>     setting
>      > the default to be 'symbolfamily=cairoSymbolFont(family,
>     usePUA=FALSE)'
>      > when grSoftVersion()["pango"] is greater than "1.44".
>      >
>      > This means that on Fedora 31 (at least on the Docker container I am
>      > testing on) "sans"->"NimubusSans" is used as the symbol font by
>     default
>      > and R converts Adobe Symbol Encoding code points to non-PUA UTF8
>     code
>      > points.? This is not the prettiest result, but it is a lot better
>     than
>      > the page full of missing glyphs that we had.
>      >
>      > The default on less "bleeding edge" systems, e.g., my Ubuntu 18.04,
>      > remains 'symbolfamily="Symbol"'.
>      >
>      > The default on other platforms is supposed to be the same as it
>     was, but
>      > I need help to confirm that.? I have set up a github repo ...
>      >
>      > https://github.com/pmur002/R-symfam-testing
>      >
>      > ... that describes how to test this on macOS and Windows if
>     anyone has
>      > time to do so.
>      >
>      > I will start trying to set up a Windows test unless someone beats
>     me to it.
>      >
>      > Paul
>      >
>      > On 30/03/20 3:24 pm, Paul Murrell wrote:
>      >> Hi
>      >>
>      >> I have created an R branch that contains a potential fix ...
>      >>
>      >> https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-symfam/
>      >>
>      >> This allows, for example, ...
>      >>
>      >> cairo_pdf(symbolfamily="OpenSymbol")
>      >>
>      >> ... to specify that the OpenSymbol family should be used as the
>      >> "symbol" font (e.g., for "plotmath") in R.
>      >>
>      >> This is just a separate branch for now because, while I have
>     tested it
>      >> under Unbuntu 18.04 and Fedora 31, I cannot even build R for
>     Windows
>      >> (right now) or Mac (ever) and I do not want to drop a bomb on
>     R-devel
>      >> at this stage of the release process for R 4.0.0.
>      >>
>      >> The attached file contains at least an outline of steps required
>     to do
>      >> a minimal test if anyone wants to try the fix on Linux.
>      >>
>      >> cc'ing Simon and Jeroen in case they are able to help with checking
>      >> that this builds and works on Mac and/or Windows.
>      >>
>      >> NOTEs:
>      >> - 'symbolfamily' can only be specified when a graphics device is
>      >> opened, and it is then fixed for that device.
>      >> - on Windows, for cairo-based devices, the "symbol" font is still
>      >> hard-coded as "Standard Symbols L"
>      >>
>      >> Paul
>      >>
>      >> On 30/03/20 8:15 am, Paul Murrell wrote:
>      >>> Hi
>      >>>
>      >>> Thanks for your input on this I?aki and Nicolas.
>      >>>
>      >>> I am starting testing an R fix for this problem today.
>      >>>
>      >>> As suggested, the plan is to allow the R user to specify a font
>      >>> family other than "symbol" for plotmath output (or, more
>     generally,
>      >>> in R parlance, for 'font=5' or 'fontface=5') on a Cairo-based
>      >>> graphics device.
>      >>>
>      >>> Paul
>      >>>
>      >>>
>      >>> On 27/03/20 11:30 pm, I?aki Ucar wrote:
>      >>>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 12:25, Nicolas Mailhot
>      >>>> <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net
>     <mailto:nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net>> wrote:
>      >>>>>
>      >>>>> <snip>
>      >>>>>
>      >>>>> R brought this all on itself by hardcoding a Windows-only
>     ?Symbol?
>      >>>>> font
>      >>>>> family name in its default conf. Linux systems are UTF-8 by
>     default
>      >>>>> for
>      >>>>> ~20 years now, they don?t need the forcing of magic font
>     families to
>      >>>>> handle symbols not present in the 8-bit legacy Windows encodings.
>      >>>>>
>      >>>>> The actual effect of this conf is not the selection of font
>     files with
>      >>>>> special and unusual symbols. It is to priorize fonts that
>     match the
>      >>>>> "Symbol" magic name. And those fonts are few and crumbling on
>     Linux
>      >>>>> systems, because no one has needed to bother with them since
>     Linux
>      >>>>> switched to UTF-8 last millenium.
>      >>>>>
>      >>>>> Just stop using ?Symbol? in R and things will work a lot better.
>      >>>>> Alternatively, prepare to maintain the ?Symbol? aliasing stack in
>      >>>>> fontconfig (and fight with wine for it), because *no* *one*
>     *else*
>      >>>>> *cares* about this legacy Windows-specific stuff.
>      >>>>
>      >>>> So, in the light of Nicolas' input (thanks!), I think that font
>      >>>> selection should be fixed upstream in R. I'd be happy to put
>     all this
>      >>>> together in R's bugzilla, but I don't have an account. Could
>     someone
>      >>>> please invite me?
>      >>>>
>      >>>> I?aki
>      >>>>
>      >>>> ______________________________________________
>      >>>> R-devel at r-project.org <mailto:R-devel at r-project.org> mailing list
>      >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>      >>>>
>      >>
>      >
> 
>     -- 
>     Dr Paul Murrell
>     Department of Statistics
>     The University of Auckland
>     Private Bag 92019
>     Auckland
>     New Zealand
>     64 9 3737599 x85392
>     paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz <mailto:paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz>
>     http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/
> 
>     ______________________________________________
>     R-devel at r-project.org <mailto:R-devel at r-project.org> mailing list
>     https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 

-- 
Dr Paul Murrell
Department of Statistics
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
64 9 3737599 x85392
paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/



[Rd] Plotmath on Fedora 31 broken with with pango >= 1.44 - workarounds?
Paul Murrell