Bug 145786 – font spaces show as squares in java applets

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Iain Buchanan 2006-08-31 16:55:37 UTC]

I'm not sure what exaclty this comes under (java, firefox, etc) so I left it "unspecified".

Basically, a particular java applet on a PLC shows a box, a space, and then another box everytime there should be just a space.  The effect of this is all the text is longer than it's supposed to be, making some of it hard to see or invisible because of other items in the applet.  (attachment coming soon)

This "used to be ok", some eons ago till some form of upgrades broke it.  I know I should have reported it then, but, I didn't, so I don't know what package has introduced the problem.

I have tried google, and gentoo-user, for a long time, but none of the suggestions seemed to help.
- I've emerged many new fonts
- I tried changing character encoding in firefox
- I tried changing default fonts in firefox
- I tried changing the java plugin from blackdown (blackdown-jdk-1.4.2.03) to sun (sun-jdk-1.5.0.08)
 but none of this seems to affect the applet font.

I _haven't_ tried anything X related, becuase I don't know what to try.  I checked out the Xorg.0.log file, and these are the warnings I can see:

(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/fonts.cache-1" does not exist.
	Entry deleted from font path.
...

Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/default, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/encodings, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/local, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/util, removing from list!

I don't know enough about X to know if this is the problem...

I have also tried Internet Exploder and Firefox on Windows, and the issue is not there.

Lastly, there are 3-4 gentoo machines in our workplace, set up by different people (x86, ~x86, different use flags, etc) and they all seem to show the same problem.

I can get more information on the applet or system or whatever, just ask :)  I'm out of ideas!

[Comment 1 Iain Buchanan 2006-08-31 17:21:01 UTC]

Created attachment 95602 [details]
output from emerge --info

[Comment 2 Iain Buchanan 2006-08-31 17:28:33 UTC]

Created attachment 95604 [details]
small cropped attachement from java applet showing text with boxes and spaces

I cut this from a screenshot - if you want me to make it bigger, let me know, but I think this clearly shows the issue.

[Comment 3 Iain Buchanan 2006-09-04 21:43:24 UTC]

Created attachment 96030 [details]
emerge --info from an older setup showing the same issue

This emerge --info comes from a system that hasn't been updated since June 2005, which still shows the "font box" problem, with these versions of software:

Mozilla 1.7.5
Blackdown JDK 1.4.2-01
x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.1.902

If you want more info from any of my systems, let me know :)

[Comment 4 Iain Buchanan 2007-12-18 02:27:20 UTC]

The PLC manufacturer has released a new applet which doesn't show this issue any more (only years after it first surfaced).

thanks.