When I right-click a font family name in one of the font selection combo-boxes, it would be nice if I were able to get more information about this font - from what the font subsystem can access. Specifically: Type (TTF/OTF etc.), Version number or version string; Copyrights; Designer. Rationale: 1. When choosing a font family, sometimes these features may be a consideration. 2. Sometimes you want to make sure you're using the right version of a font. For example - right now, we _aren't_ using the right versions of some bundled fonts: bug 152473. This is a way to check. 3. This won't clutter the UI, since a user will only be exposed to this when they right-click a font family name - which is when they want to be able to do more stuff with the font family anyway.
It may not affect the UI but I still don't buy the rationale and think it's nerdy feature creep. Do you have a real life example like "Every time I have to pick one out of my hundert different fonts I wonder if the was designed by Jane Doe to give her proper credit."?
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #1) > It may not affect the UI but I still don't buy the rationale and think it's > nerdy feature creep. Do you have a real life example like "Every time I have > to pick one out of my hundert different fonts I wonder if the was designed > by Jane Doe to give her proper credit."? Many of the times I have to pick one our of my thousand different fonts, I am missing criteria by which to choose, because the drop-down list doesn't have enough of them (often it doesn't even have the font family name, but I've already reported that in another bug).
I don't think a context menu on a listbox entry selection would be a reasonable way to do this. Too many listboxes across the UI would be affected to start including a context menu for the class. But listing the details at some location within LibreOffice UI *would* be helpful. Two dialogs with font selections actions seem reasonable to me: 1) a popup dialog via button on the 'Special Character...' dialog 2) a popup dialog via button on the 'Character...' dialog, next to the 'Features' button Such dialog could show both font information and license, but also importantly the Unicode coverage of the font. Representative of what popup dialogs for font info could detail--have a look at the Windows BableMap utility [1]. Details as found on its Fonts -> 'Font Information...' and its Fonts -> 'Font Analysis Utility...'. Additionally the BableMap Fonts -> 'Font Coverage...' dialog is a *very* handy for making font selections, for previewing and copying edit buffer in a font that includes a particular Unicode glyph or span (but might be tough cross-platform and certainly much more dev effort). =-ref-= [1] https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html
Sounds to me like asking for a swiss-army-knife. Font management tools should give hints on meta data.
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. The use case that requires meta data is very much unclear and likely off-topic. There are plenty of font management tools that gives insights. The reasonable wish to understand compatibility with other fonts would not be covered per meta data. If such information is to be introduced it should be "hidden away" from regular users. The proposed info button in the character properties dialog sounds acceptable. But the recommendation is to rather resolve the request as WF.
*** Bug 160866 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 194700 [details] character dialog
I have numerous tickets related to unwanted changes to documents. sometimes, the font version is not the same. The user hasn't done the latest update or has installed the wrong version from the internet. Sometimes, there's a mix between TTF and OTF versions... I'd like to have at a glance the font version LibreOffice actually uses and the file name. Specialized software doesn't solve the problem, because it's the behavior of LibreOffice that we want to know.
Another bit of information the user may want to know is whether or not not the family is "real", or whether LibreOffice built a pseudo-family by appending a variant name, e.g. "Foo Condensed" - is it "Foo" family, "Condensed" variant or is the family name actually "Foo Condensed"? Another use case: I'm creating a business presentation. Can I legally use a given font family? I need to know the license info. (Although TBH that may merit a separate feature which would filter out unusable fonts.)
*** Bug 162904 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Hi, - Users can install new fonts without administrative rights - In a large network of computers, it is difficult to have a consistent set of fonts of the same version - User can edit files with different computers with not the same font version - Some software can add unfortunately some old fonts - You may sometimes find a mixture of TTF and OTF fonts. - The font path can change depending on the environment - The windows or third party font tool are not accurate to predict LibreOffice behavior. There should therefore be a simple indicator of the font used, with the file name and version. It's a feedback from the field.
According to the source code, the version number is not managed by LibreOffice... I suggest improving the function linked to Uno to allow a third-party extension to read the version number if the user wants to...
(In reply to Regis Perdreau from comment #12) > According to the source code, the version number is not managed by > LibreOffice... Whether it's managed or not - information about fonts is available to applications. If you open, for example, the GNOME font viewer (ugh, I hate GNOME) shows us, other than the name: * Variant, a.k.a. style * File location * Type (e.g. TrueType, OpenType) * Version string * Copyright notice * Description * Manufacturer * Designer * License * Glyph Count * Color Glyphs Yes/No I'm definitely not saying all of these should be shown - but it seems they can be easily (?) determined.
You can't read version from basic, or i want to know how...
(In reply to Regis Perdreau from comment #14) > You can't read version from basic, or i want to know how... basic? I'm not sure what you mean. Anyway, look at the GNOME fonts code, here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-font-viewer/-/blob/main/src/font-view-window.c#L416 and there's some kind of font loader which gives you a bunch of strings through an FT_Face structure/handle. I'm no font handling expert though.
We have 3 environments to manage with different graphical settings. The problem is to have an official and robust way of reading the font metadata and the version, with the UNO API and not tinkering with third-party libraries that can change. If we have an UNO api, we can build external tools if you don't want to add some information in the standard user interface. Third-party tools,are not always accurate because we may have different formats (TTF, OTF).