Unable to set custom font in plasma5

English Applications
1

Recently I’ve updraded from openSUSE 13.2 to 42.3. It introduces Plasma5 DE, different from KDE4.

The problem is I am unable to set a custom font for plasma-dependent applications: in systemsettings5 in the font configuration module it is shown in preview fields, but actually fonts are not affected. DE restart does not help, by the way. Conversely, KDE4 systemsettings and all kde4-dependent applications work OK.

Here are the screenshots of systemsettings5: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By_wN9l4ZLr2VXd6bE52cVZCTlk
… and systemsettings: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By_wN9l4ZLr2blRESUtUeW1vRVE

Any hints how to handle this issue?

2

After some debugging I’ve found a cause of the bug. In the structure of a TTF font there is an entity called “OS/2 table”, that holds a number for “usWidthClass” (https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/os2.htm#wtc). The font I wanted to set (PT Sans Narrow) had its value set to FWIDTH_CONDENSED. When I’ve manually edited the font file, changing it to FWIDTH_NORMAL, Plasma5 has recognized this font and it has appeared in the interface.

I’d like to ask for advice: is it a font bug, a Plasma5 bug, or an openSUSE bug, and where should I submit a bug report?

And one more question. For some reason Plasma5 does not recognize and use embedded font bitmaps (I have an entry


<match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="embeddedbitmap" >
    <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
</match>

in my .fonts.conf file). What could be done with it?

3

You could try to contact the font foundry which as far as I can see is ParaType. Once the current status of the font set has been determined, a KDE Bug Report, if needed, could possibly be the next step.

I suspect that, the KDE developers have chosen to only support outline fonts – possibly for reasons of simplicity – it is a graphical user interface . . .
Bitmap fonts (aka raster fonts) are typically used for console terminals – including the Linux console. I suspect that this maybe the reason why the KDE folks have chosen to not support raster fonts, embedded or otherwise.