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

[Iñaki Ucar]

On Mon, 30 Mar 2020 at 04:24, Paul Murrell <paul using stat.auckland.ac.nz> 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.

Will this be a default on Linux? Or are you planning any mechanism
(env variable, option...) to make it the default? Because, otherwise,
as pango is updated across distributions, R graphics will be "broken"
by default unless the user explicitly calls the graphics device in
that way to set that option, which I would say is uncommon.

Iñaki

> 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 Iñaki 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, Iñaki Ucar wrote:
> >> On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 12:25, Nicolas Mailhot
> >> <nicolas.mailhot using 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?
> >>
> >> Iñaki
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel using 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 using stat.auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/



-- 
Iñaki Úcar

On Mon, 30 Mar 2020 at 04:24, Paul Murrell <paul using stat.auckland.ac.nz> 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 Iñaki 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, Iñaki Ucar wrote:
> >> On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 12:25, Nicolas Mailhot
> >> <nicolas.mailhot using 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?
> >>
> >> Iñaki
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel using 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 using stat.auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/



-- 
Iñaki Úcar