Fonts on Text widget damaged?

On Linux Mint, Tcl/Tk switched from 8.6.1 32-Bit to 8.6.9 64-Bit. Found that font Times in Text widgets has changed so that geometric interaction with graphical UI becomes difficult. Is there any way to restore correct fonts from earlier Tcl/Tk versions?

Hi @wolfdieter,

Thanks for writing! How did you install Tcl/Tk? Was it using the ActiveState Platform or was it using Synaptic?

Cheers!
–zam

I downloaded ActiveTcl-8.6.9.8609.2-x86_64-linux-glibc-2.5-dcd3ff05d.tar.gz, unpacked it, then sudo install.sh

Afterwards I switched to /usr/bin and set symbolic link to wish and tclsh.

To see the difference try my little minesweeper where text items are perfectly centered to the tiles.

http://wolf-dieter-busch.de/html/Software/Spiele/Mine.htm

Compare screenshot, created with 8.6.1, with appearance on Canvas of 8.6.9.

Hallo @wolfdieter,

I’ll check with our support staff. I didn’t note any fonts in the Tcl bundles, but I’m no Tcl expert.

However, I do note that the font looks rather like Helvetica, rather than Times.

image

Perhaps the issue is that Times wasn’t being used and Helvetica was being used as a default? Just a guess.

TschĂĽĂź!
–zak

True. I found the difference on Times, later I found the difference on all fonts. Sorry you as a citizen of Switzerland know Helvetica by name better than all of us (including me, I come from Germany).

Gruetzi (hoffentlich stimmt die Schreibweise)

No worries! Half of debugging is having fresh eyes. :slight_smile:

Ich glaube schon. Ich bin noch nicht mutig genug, die schweizerdeutsche Rechtschreibung anzugehen.

TschĂĽĂź!
–zak

Die Schweizer mögen kein ß.

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Workaround

Playing around with “font create …” and “font configure …” I found out that font names Helvetica and Times are guaranteed to be available, but not really created font names in Tkʼs font space. Instead, using these names triggers font values, where font size and line height do not fit, such that letters in vertically aligned lines “kiss” each other. This happens even if you try to create fonts named Helvetica and Times.

Until bug is fixed, create fonts as following:

font create serif -family serif
font create sans -family sans

Then, instead of “Helvetica” and “Times”, use “sans” and “serif”.
Incredibly it works.

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Du hast recht, aber ich mag die Eszett. :slight_smile: Wenn ich eine andere Sprache lernen, sollte ich zumindest die ausgefallenen nicht-lateinischen Buchstaben bentuzen.

Hast du gewusst, dass unsprĂĽnglich eine Ligatur aus langem s (Mitte des Worts) und krummem s (Ende des Worts) ist? Und dass es eigentlich Ess-Ess heiĂźen mĂĽsste statt Ess-Zett?