[SOLVED] TrueType font rendering issues

gk · 2014-03-13 14:12:50

The problem I have run into is related to TrueType fonts.

I have a netbook that I reinstalled Arch on. I have an i3-wm setup with an i3bar populated by i3status.

I have multiple items that use unicode icons using the ttf-icons font.
I installed two fonts, gohufont and ttf-icons, albeit in an unusualy way. Due to external reasons, the machine doesn't have an Internet connection, so I had to install the fonts sort-of manually.
I downloaded the necessary files for the fonts and did it this way: the gohufont is in pcf format compressed with gzip. I looked at the fonts PKGBUILD file and manually repeated the installation process via `install(1)'. It was installed in /usr/share/fonts/misc. I did the same with ttf-icons and it is installed in /usr/share/fonts/TTF. After doing so, I updated the font cache via `fc-cache -fv'. Both fonts show up in the output of fc-list(1), Gohufont works fine, but the icons font doesn't.

The .i3status.conf contains format lines with icons from the font and the ones that were in the file when it was retrieved from the machine it was running on do actually show up and render in the bar. Upon adding a new unicode symbol from vim via ^v+u+<char code>, it turns into a representation of ^<letter> (the color highlight indicates that it is a unicode char). The other glyphs aren't being rendered properly in vim either, as opposed to all being fine previously. Instead of the actual glyph, they show up as a sequence of: <rounded square with a question mark in it><tilde><letter>[<another tilde><another letter>]<round square with a question mark> (probably the closing symbol). After saving the file, the untouched glyphs still show up properly, but the added ones show up as wide blocks with digit codes in them.

I am using gnome-terminal with a bash shell. Upon opening the font selection dialog in gnome-terminal and selecting the icons font, it is rendered as square blocks with numbers in them (thus, indicating that they didn't render properly).

I also attempted placing them in appropriate subfolders under ~/.fonts and then running `mkfontscale', `mkfontdir' in the ~/.fonts directory and then appending the directory to the font path via `xset fp+ ~/.fonts' and rehashing via `xset fp rehash' and updating the font cache again via `fc-cache -fv'. Still no dice.

I assume this might be a unicode problem, seeing as they're not being rendered in the terminal editor properly either.

xorg-font-util, xorg-font-utils, fontconfig and freetype2 are all installed.

Any tips or pointers would be highly appreciated.

Update: I had forgotten to set the default locale, so it was "C". I have set LANG to en_US.UTF-8 in /etc/locale.conf and have explicitely exported the LANG variable to the same value in my .bashrc. For some reason, it didn't apply after restarting X or logging out and in, so I set it using `localectl set-locale' and that did take effect. Now the old unicode glyph characters are all round squares with questionmarks inside them in the config file when opened in VIM and the new one is still a ^<letter>. The old ones render in the bar but the new one doesn't.

Update2: So apparently, a reboot was necessary for the changes to take effect system wide. The icons now appear in the terminal and everything. I just had to delete the ^<letter> representation of the broken one in the configuration file and re-enter it again. So this seems to be resolved. I will write down a step-by-step solution some time later (might be tomorrow, as I don't have the time at the moment). Anyone looking for a solution will probably find one here.

Last edited by gk (2014-03-17 12:31:11)

jasonwryan · 2014-03-13 16:24:50

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-03-13 14:12:50

[SOLVED] TrueType font rendering issues

#2 2014-03-13 16:24:50

Re: [SOLVED] TrueType font rendering issues

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