[R-SIG-Mac] R commander fonts on R 3.4.0

[Simon Urbanek]

In R versions before 3.4.0 we were shipping our own version of fontconfig which was using the following font directories

--with-default-fonts=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts --with-add-fonts="/System/Library/Fonts,/Library/Fonts,~/Library/Fonts"

As of R 3.4.0 we are using fontconfig from XQuartz (since they started diverging from our version and thus causing issues) so it's now entirely up to the standard font configuration in XQuartz. So my guess would be that you may have some fonts in your private font library which is not configured - possibly in ~/Library/Fonts. As far as I can tell XQuartz uses all of the above except for ~/Library/Fonts so you may need to either install the fonts your want at system level or change your fontconfig configuration to include your private font library. See fc-list to list all your fonts that fontconfig knows about.

Cheers,
Simon


> On May 9, 2017, at 9:52 PM, Fox, John <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> 
> Dear David,
> 
> 
> Jose and I corresponded earlier today, and I can’t duplicate his problem
> on two MacBook Pros, both with apparently the same setup as Jose’s: macOS
> Sierra, R 3.4.0, Rcmdr 2.3-2, and XQuartz 2.7.11 (i.e., all current
> versions). 
> 
> If the problem were with availability of X11 fonts, why would the fonts
> appear properly for him with R 3.3.3 but not R 3.4.0?
> 
> I thought that someone more familiar with Macs than I am might spot the
> cause of the problem from Jose’s screenshot, and so I suggested that he
> write to the R-SIG-Mac list.
> 
> Best,
> John
> 
> -------------------------------------
> John Fox, Professor
> McMaster University
> Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
> Web: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/
> 
> 
> 
> On 2017-05-09, 6:45 PM, "R-SIG-Mac on behalf of David Winsemius"
> <r-sig-mac-bounces at r-project.org on behalf of dwinsemius at comcast.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> On May 9, 2017, at 3:08 PM, Jose G Conde Santiago via R-SIG-Mac
>>> <r-sig-mac at r-project.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I recently upgraded to R 3.4.0, but now I get very poor fonts from
>>> Rcmdr 2.3-2 as shown below:
>>> 
>>> <Dialog.png>
>> 
>> I'm not an Rcmdr user but I tried bringing a current version up. (I
>> included a request to install Rcmdr with all dependencies but X11
>> complained that aplpack was missing and that needed to be installed as
>> well.)  Seems you don't like teh proportionally space serif font you are
>> seeing which was different than what I saw. Think you might want to show
>> what this returns for you
>> 
>> names(X11Fonts())
>> [1] "serif"        "sans"         "mono"         "Times"
>> "Helvetica"   
>> [6] "CyrTimes"     "CyrHelvetica" "Arial"        "Mincho"
>> 
>>> X11Fonts()$serif
>> [1] "-*-times-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>> 
>> I'm running R 3.4.0, El Cap, XQuartz 2.7.11 (xorg-server 1.18.4)  and
>> that won't change since my box is "end of life" per Apple's inflexible OS
>> support.
>> 
>> I tried running your test code and it seemed to lock up my X11 session as
>> well as my R console (Perhaps this is due to running Rcmder in the R.app
>> GUI?) 
>> 
>> Best;
>> David.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> I reloaded the older version of R (3.3.3), ran Rcmdr and the problem
>>> disappeared. I downloaded R 3.4.0 again and the problem with Rcmdr
>>> reappeared.
>> 
>>> 
>>> I read a previous post on the list regarding an issue with Rcmdr and
>>> followed your suggestions to that posting:
>>> 
>>> 1. The following test went well with R 3.4.0:
>>> 
>>>>> library (tcltk)
>>>>> tk_messageBox(message="test")
>>>> [1] "ok"
>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2. Ran R 3.4.0 from the terminal, and then ran R Commander. The problem
>>> persists.
>>> 
>>> I am running XQuartz 2.7.11. My machine is an iMac (27-inch, Late
>>> 2012); Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, with 32 GB RAM. Graphics: NVIDIA
>>> GeForce GTX 675MX 1024 MB. OS X Sierra 10.12.4.
>>> 
>>> I will appreciate any suggestions.
>>> 
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>> 
>>> José
>>> 
>>> José G. Conde, MD, MPH
>>> Professor, School of Medicine
>>> Director, CentIT2
>>> UPR Medical Sciences Campus
>>> 
>>> Tel  (787) 763-9401 Fax (787) 758-5206
>>> 
>>> Email: jose.conde1 at upr.edu
>>> 
>>> URL: http://rcmi.rcm.upr.edu
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>>> R-SIG-Mac at r-project.org
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>> 
>> David Winsemius
>> Alameda, CA, USA
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>> R-SIG-Mac at r-project.org
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> 
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