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

[Paul Murrell]

Thanks Gabriel.  Sounds like both you and Brian can build the branch on 
Mac.  Just need to check that Windows builds before I commit to r-devel.

Paul

On 30/03/20 7:43 pm, Gabriel Becker wrote:
> I do my devel/patch work on Mac so I can take a shot at testing your 
> branch in the next couple days.
> 
> ~G
> 
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 7:24 PM Paul Murrell <paul using stat.auckland.ac.nz 
> <mailto: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
>     <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:paul using stat.auckland.ac.nz>
>     http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/
>     ______________________________________________
>     R-devel using r-project.org <mailto: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/