1.207 looks terrible in Emacs

[sooqua]

Default Emacs, Arch Linux x86_64 5.2.1-arch1-1-ARCH

1.207

1.206

Can you revert whatever change caused this?

[AidanGG]

I'm also facing a similar issue, same Arch Linux, using the otf-fira-code package.

I am using Alacritty, 10.5 pt font size.

1.206

1.207 (Font is just generally shorter)

1.206

1.207 (Notice the misalignments to the bottom of the chevron)

Edit: I did some bisecting and found commit 2202877 to result in the misaligned chevrons.

[Tatsh]

Also having the same problem everywhere on Linux. Downgraded to 1.206 until this issue is resolved. 1.207 is very blurry and I have not changed my fontconfig at all.

[zoickx]

Having the exact same issue as @sooqua.
Tested on Arch Linux and Alpine Linux. No fontconfig changes.
The issue is not unique to Emacs: also appears in suckless dwm, dmenu, st.
No other applications seem affected.

Edit: I was using the TTF version. Replacing with OTF seems to have fixed the issue.

[tonsky]

Okay font metrics might have changed due to Google Fonts normalization process. I do not consider it to be a bug though: still the same font, still the same letter shapes, roughly same metrcis. It also would be impossible to roll back.

Match line height exactly is unfortunately impossible to do for every possible terminal out there. You fix it for one, you break it for others. There’s no solution that will satisfy everyone. The change in 1.207 was accidental, probably due to the metrics change mentioned above, but there’s no point tweaking it further for that specfic terminal.

The original issue by @sooqua with emacs skipping every other char is really strange. Anyone has any guess what might’ve caused this? Fonts should not behave that way. Maybe glyph proportions are somehow hardcoded in emacs?

@sooqua can you provide some details about your setup? Which font files are you using (ttf/otf?) How are you getting them? What GUI toolkit (GTK/what else)? How are you setting Fira Code to be a emacs font? Are you doing any of the dark magic to enable ligatures?

[zoickx]

@tonsky I do not believe the problem is with Emacs. Let me provide some details, as I am experiencing the exact same problem.

• Arch Linux x86_64 5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH (also tested on Alpine 3.10.01, but not as extensively)
• TTF files. With OTF files the problem does not occur.
• Tried installing as a package. Tried copying to /usr/share/fonts manually, updating with fc-cache afterwards. The problem occurs in both cases.
• Only tested GTK on X11. Some applications (firefox, thunar) work fine, displaying monospaced ligatures and all. Others (emacs, dwm, st, dmenu) have the weird whitespace between letters.
• In Emacs the font is set via (set-default-font "Fira Code")
• No dark magic at all, an init file with a single declaration for the default font is sufficient to reproduce the problem.

Edit:

$ uname --all
Linux nameless 5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 21 19:18:34 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ fc-cache; fc-list
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/FiraCode-Retina.ttf: Fira Code,Fira Code Retina:style=Retina,Regular
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/FiraCode-Bold.ttf: Fira Code:style=Bold
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/FiraCode-Light.ttf: Fira Code,Fira Code Light:style=Light,Regular
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/FiraCode-Medium.ttf: Fira Code,Fira Code Medium:style=Medium,Regular
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/FiraCode-Regular.ttf: Fira Code:style=Regular
/home/zoickx/.local/share/fonts/FiraSans-Bold.ttf: Fira Sans:style=Bold
/home/zoickx/.local/share/fonts/FiraSans-BoldItalic.ttf: Fira Sans:style=Bold Italic
/home/zoickx/.local/share/fonts/FiraSans-Italic.ttf: Fira Sans:style=Italic
/home/zoickx/.local/share/fonts/FiraSans-Regular.ttf: Fira Sans:style=Regular

$ pacman -Q ttf-fira-code
ttf-fira-code 1.207-1

[Tatsh]

I'm having the same issue as @AidanGG. The font is blurry on 1.207 to an unacceptable level. I am open to how to fix this like if there is a font config change to make. I have not tried OTF files yet.

[tonsky]

@Tatsh AidanGG problem was not about bluriness. What exactly your problem and what’s your setup?

[AidanGG]

There is also slight bluriness in my first comparison, which is probably due to the change in metrics.

[tonsky]

Did you use otf or ttf for 1.206? TTF has hinting, that might be the issue

[AidanGG]

I used otf in those screenshots. My fontconfig is the default on Arch: hintslight+antialias.

[kayew]

Im getting the same issue with Emacs and 1.207. Downgrading to 1.206 solves the problem. Used TTF for both.

[sooqua]

Which font files are you using (ttf/otf?)

ttf, but as @zoickx mentioned, switching to otf "fixes" the issue

How are you getting them?

Initially through pacman, but before creating this issue I manually downloaded the 1.207 zip archive and installed it in ~/.local/share/fonts, I thought maybe the Arch repositories messed something up?

What GUI toolkit (GTK/what else)?

Only GTK

How are you setting Fira Code to be a emacs font?

(set-frame-font "Fira Code 12" nil t)

Are you doing any of the dark magic to enable ligatures?

I used to, but again, for the purpose of testing everything with default settings before making this issue, I renamed my .emacs.d

[Tatsh]

On Gentoo, the Fira Code package installs OTF files and I am still getting my issue with 1.207 but not 1.206. Gentoo fetches the archive file from GitHub.

https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/master/media-fonts/fira-code/fira-code-1.207.ebuild#L10

(resolves to https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/archive/1.207.tar.gz)

[Tatsh]

I have made this GIF to demonstrate the differences. Version 1.206 is when the text is taller and without a blur at some edges such as the top in the letter M. 1.206 (good) is shown first.

Here's the images separately:

1.206 (good)

1.207 (bad)

[AidanGG]

Just to recap the issues for 1.207 in this thread:

• Emacs (and others such as dmenu, st) have a horizontal spacing issue, which appears to be fixed by using the 1.207 otfs.
• A pervasive vertical scaling issue where things end up looking blurrier. This occurs in 1.207 ttfs and otfs, with the only known workaround downgrading to 1.206. This appears to have been introduced in 2202877.