Not all chinese characters display correctly with non-embedded text

[JabbyPandaUA]

Hi all,

  I've updated to the last beta 2 of Flash Player 10.1 (10,1,51,66) and compiled this simple Flex application to illustrate the fact that not all chinese characters can be displayed correctly with non-embedded text (device font).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"

               xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"

               xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo"

               minWidth="1024" minHeight="768"

               creationComplete="resourceManager.localeChain = ['zh_CN'];"

               layout="{new VerticalLayout()}">           

    <fx:Script>

        <![CDATA[

            import spark.layouts.VerticalLayout;

        ]]>

    </fx:Script>

    <s:Label text="伜-伞伟传伡伢伣伤伥伦伧伨伩伪伫伬伭-伝">

    </s:Label>

    <mx:Label text="伜-伞伟传伡伢伣伤伥伦伧伨伩伪伫伬伭-伝"/>       

</s:Application>

  Notice that characters from the Unicode range 0x4F1E .. 0x4А2D are not displayed within <s:Label> component that uses Flash Text Engine (FTE) by default to display the text, but at the same time those characters display just fine within older <mx:Label> component that relies on flash.text.TextField instance to render the text.

[Guest]

When I compile your code with a relatively recent Flash Builder 4.0 install and open in 10.1 beta 2, I see both labels with the same glyphs. Could you give a picture of your results?

[JabbyPandaUA]

Here the screenshot of what I see, I am running Windows XP, Flash Player 10,1,51,66 (debug), Internet Explorer 6.

[Guest]

OK - I can see the problem in XP. In Vista, Win 7 and the Mac it renders correctly. I'm asking around why font fallback isn't working in this case for XP.

[Guest]

Do you have simsun.ttf in your C:\WINDOWS\fonts directory? The new FTE font fallback feature expects to be able to use that font, which appears on the list of fonts installed in XP here: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/winxp.htm.

[JabbyPandaUA]

Hi Alan,

  You are right, my install of Windows XP English Service Pack 3 is missing the "simsun.ttc" font.

   I think this font will only be installed when I manually turn on the support for East Asian languages in "Control Panel " > "Regional And Language Options".

  When I refer to the more recent version of the page "Fonts supplied with* Windows XP"  http://www.microsoft.com/typography/Fonts/product.aspx?PID=135, I can clearly see the note "The installation of any particular font may be dependent on the installation options that are selected."

   I've added this missing font "simsun.ttc" manually and all chinese symbols begin to be visible in FTE  ==  FTE font fallback feature is working  when this font is available at the system. 

    So my question now is - can FTE font fallback feature for Chinese language depend on some other font rather then "simsun.ttc" which is included into standard install Windows XP English version? May be in a future?

    If not, we have no other option rather then to embed "simsunttc" font.

[Guest]

I've forwarded this problem to the person in control of the Player fallback list. He's investigating whether we could use one of the fonts in the minimal XP install instead of simsun.ttf.

[Guest]

It turns out that the minimum XP install does not include any fonts that we could use to display those glyphs. My own XP install included Office, so it had Arial Unicode MS, which looks like the only font the FP9 text could have been drawn with.

Could you post a list of your fonts (and their sizes)? The result of a "dir" command on your c:\Windows\Fonts directory would give us the information we need.

[JabbyPandaUA]

    OK, did not know that "Arial Unicode MS" font is only distributed with Microsoft Office, was looking into relying on this font in case if "simsun.ttc" font is not available at the user's system, by using the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
               xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
               xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" 
               minWidth="1024" minHeight="768"
               creationComplete="resourceManager.localeChain = ['zh_CN']"
               layout="{new VerticalLayout()}">                
    <fx:Style>
        @namespace s "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark";
        @namespace mx "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo";
        
        s|Label {
            fontFamily: "Arial Unicode MS, SimSun, Arial";             
        }
                         
    </fx:Style>    
    <fx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import spark.layouts.VerticalLayout;
        ]]>
    </fx:Script>
    <s:Label id="sparkLabel" text="伜-伞伟传伡伢伣伤伥伦伧伨伩伪伫伬伭-伝"/>    
</s:Application>   

Tough decision ahead, but accordingly to  the survey at codestyle.org (2000 participants from 2007 year and onwards), Arial Unicode MS is present at 62.53%% system surveyed.

ps

   My current install of Windows XP already includes the install of Microsoft Office 2007 and I've also enabled/disabled the support of East Asian languages, thus the content of  my "fonts" folder differs now significantly from "clean" Windows XP install version.

Nevertheless I found the page with comprehensive lists of standard fonts installed with different releases of Windows that looks viable here:  http://www.kayskreations.net/fonts/fonttb.html

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Adding Arial Unicode MS to your font family list is probably the way to go - and it's likely that a substantial portion of the 37.5% that do not have that font and are interested in viewing Chinese text will have East Asian language support enabled. So they would be able to view the text in SimSun.

[MLenzke]

Another thing to check is to make sure you have supplemental language support installed. Go to Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages (tab) and check the box for Install files for East Asian languages. Hope this helps.

Marc

[JabbyPandaUA]

No, I do not have installed support for East Asian languages at my Windows XP install, that's a problem