[Issue 45128] Silent Failing is Bad Practice (Font fallback and Glyph Fallback)

[fallenguru at openoffice.org]

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http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=45128





------- Additional comments from fallenguru at openoffice.org Wed Apr 28 12:40:13 +0000 2010 -------
> While not productive to add the comment here, I cannot resist:

We can just continue the discussion here, then. :-)

> No, [a warning (on opening a document)] will not get my support. The user
usually doesn't care /that/ much to be annoyed with a dialog she has to click away.

How about making it non-modal then? Something like the yellow bar that pops up
at the top of Firefox windows?

The reason I'd like this feature is simple: easier support.
a) I send someone a document. The recipient doesn't have all required fonts and
thinks that the document is ugly / broken and, what's worse, that it's my fault.
If there were a warning I could point to that and say "look, you're missing some
fonts, let me help you find and install them".
b) Two third parties, at least one of which I have to support, have problems
exchanging documents. They "don't look right". See above.  

Most of the time one can just export as PDF but some people would like something
they can easily edit.

> [an option to turn off all substitution and live with black boxes or boxes 
with the Unicode codepoint number in them] is a very, very unlikely szenario for
a user. I doubt anyone would like to have an unreadable document.

I'd prefer an unreadable document to one that looks entirely different depending
on the platform / installed fonts. Yes, I'm a control freak. 

> This is the wrong cure to the real problem. You probably think of this as a
way to spot the places where fallback did occur, but IMHO this is a very bad way
to deal with it.

Naturally, but it would be very quick to implement, wouldn't it, and thus could
serve as a stop gap measure.

> [a way to search for substituted glyphs / fonts is closer] to a workable solution.

> I'd think of a notification in the statusbar. "green" no substitution in
place, "orange" glyph fallback, "red" font-fallback (just states, not real
design proposal :-))
> click on it and get a list similar to "Font <notavailable> is replaced by font
<installedfont>".
> For the glyph fallback this is harder, as you cannot simply put the character
in the UI, since very likely the ui font will not contain that symbol either, so
either use unicode codepoints or a "highlight all font replacements" and 
"highlight all glyph fallbacks" function. IMHO the glyph fallback one is more 
important, as single alien characters within text stand out more, than whole 
paragraphs/document in the same (replacement) font.

Sounds good to me.


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