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Scribus => Text and Typography => Topic started by: dztypesetter on February 10, 2019, 04:35:00 AM

Title: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 10, 2019, 04:35:00 AM
I'm trying to use characters from the font "Noto Music Regular".  The font is loaded, and appears in the font menu in Story Editor.  The glyph that I want is unicode 0x1D1AA, and is called "musical symbol combining down bow".  I clicked "Insert->Insert Glyph", and in the Character Plette dialog, I clicked "Search" to bring up the Unicode Search dialog.  I entered "down bow", and the glyph I want pops up.  I insert it, making sure the inserted character is set to the correct font.

It appears in the doucment as an open square--I figured that just meant there was no screen rendering of that font.  But when I export to PDf, it complains about a missing glyph, and if I click "ignore errors" it does not show up at all in the PDF output.

What am I missing?  Is there a way to get Scribus to use these glyphs?

-DZ
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 10, 2019, 09:53:52 AM
the story editor does not matter.

you have to check if the font is in file > preferences > fonts...
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 10, 2019, 06:28:05 PM
OK, I checked in File -> Preferences -> Fonts, and the font is there, with the box "use font" checked.
As a sanity check, I can use the same font in Libreoffice, and it displays the correct glyphs.
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 10, 2019, 10:31:31 PM
googling for "noto music regular" did not give me any result...
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 11, 2019, 03:55:38 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto_fonts
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 11, 2019, 04:14:27 AM
Actually that wikipedia article seems to be a bit out of date.  It does not include the Music typeface.  It's one of the newer members of the NoTo font family.  Here's a link to it in the git repository:
  https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/blob/master/hinted/NotoMusic-Regular.ttf

But regardless, I do have the ttf file on my system, and Scribus is apparently seeing it, and the glyphs work with other software.  So why won't Scribus render these characters?
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 11, 2019, 09:10:04 AM
now that all the information is available... i could give it a try.

i did not know that there is such a "unicode seach" tool and i could not get it to work.

but if i try to find the 0x1D1AA character in the glyphs browser i do find it and i can insert it.

it shows up like in the screenshot (i love music but i only know basic notation... so i really don't know if it's the right sign... sorry!)

p.s.: can it be that the "down bow" is part of "composed signs"?

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 12, 2019, 05:38:37 AM
Well, that's hopeful.  Thanks for trying it out.  The symbol on the top right is the correct one.  Now I just need to figure out why it doesn't work for me!

Where is the "glyph browser"?  The only way I could find to insert a unicode character was through
Story Editor -> Insert -> Insert Glyph... that brings up the "Character Palette", then click the search icon, that brings up "Unicode Search".  Then entering either "1D1AA" or "down bow" brings up the glyph, and puts it in the character palette, from where I can then insert it.  But it doesn't display the glyph.

If I click the first icon in Character Palette, which is labeled "Show/Hide Enhanced Palette", it brings up something that I might describe as a glyph browser (though it doesn't call itself that).  There's a place to type the unicode for a glyph to insert, but it only allows entering 4 hex digits.

Any idea what might be wrong?

(I don't know what "composed signs" is.)
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 12, 2019, 09:54:23 AM
in the glyph window, just click on the first icon, left of the search one...

and, please, get comfortable with the text frame edit  modus and the windows > properties palette...

p.s.: composed sign are signs like ^, which is supposed to be composed with vocals (as in ô)
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 13, 2019, 02:30:29 AM
> in the glyph window, just click on the first icon, left of the search one...

OK, that's what I did, as I described, unless I'm completely not understanding what the "glyph window" is.  But, as I said, it only allows entering a 4-hex-digit unicode.  But the one I'm after is 5 hex digits.

> and, please, get comfortable with the text frame edit  modus and the windows > properties palette...

I believe I am comfortable with this, but unless I'm completely missing something, there is no way to insert a glyph this way other than typing its keyboard character.  So for a glyph that has no keyboard character, as the one I'm talking about, there seems to be no way to do it, without going through the Story Editor.  Am I missing something??
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: utnik on February 13, 2019, 06:55:06 AM
hi dztypesetter

Quote from: dztypesetter on February 13, 2019, 02:30:29 AM...as I said, it only allows entering a 4-hex-digit unicode.  But the one I'm after is 5 hex digits.

i've just checked it here – and you're right, in scribus1.4.7 there's no way to insert more than four digits. but with scribus 1.5.4 it works.

QuoteSo for a glyph that has no keyboard character, as the one I'm talking about, there seems to be no way to do it, without going through the Story Editor.  Am I missing something??

you have the same 'insert' menu while editing directly in the text frame...

utnik
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 13, 2019, 09:40:34 AM
you don't need to enter any code.

just visually browse the available glyphs and double click on the one you want to insert.
a tooltip did tell me which character has the unicode you were looking for. but you will not need it, since you recognize it visually.

you can drag and drop glyphs to the main "insert glyph" window to have a faster access to specific ones.
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 14, 2019, 01:20:28 AM
When I select the Noto Music Regular font from the menu in the glyph browser (assuming I'm looking at the right window), I see a few music-related glyphs in the first row (though not the one I need), followed by a couple of pages of solid black squares. When I point at these squares, the tool tip shows me a unicode value, but the largest one is something like D245.  So, only 4 hex digits.  The one I'm looking for is 1D1AA, which does not appear in that list (either visually, or by unicode value).  When I try to type 1D1AA in the "Insert Code" box, it truncates after 4 digits.

I am rather mystified, since clearly you've been able to access the glyph I need, but I cannot!  Could it be a difference in Scribus version?  I'm using the version currently in Debian Testing, which is 1.4.7.  Or maybe it's a difference in version of the font--which would make it not a Scribus issue.  I'm also using the version of Noto fonts that are packaged in Debian Testing.  So if there's nothing that I'm clearly doing wrong in Scribus, I'll have to try downloading the fonts from the source and see what happens.
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on February 14, 2019, 04:40:12 PM
you're right scribus 1.4 is displaying black squares and does not insert the glyphs in the text.

no idea why it does so. you can open a ticket in https://bugs.scribus.net but it will take some time until you'll get the new version packaged for debian.
i'm not sure either if the issue can be fixed in 1.4... you might want to try and see what jean replies...


i have been using the development version of scribus, and there i get the glyph to show correctly.

it's up to you, to decide if you want to give the development version of scribus a try...
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: dztypesetter on February 15, 2019, 05:12:19 AM
Ah, OK.  Maybe not the answer I'd hoped for  :(   ... but it's good know it's just me!

Since whatever the problem is seems to be fixed in the devel version, maybe it's redundant to file a bug report.  I can just live without this font until the next version comes out.

Thanks for your help.

-David
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: jack_cat on July 24, 2019, 06:56:49 PM
Quote from: dztypesetter on February 10, 2019, 04:35:00 AM
I'm trying to use characters from the font "Noto Music Regular".  ....a missing glyph....
-DZ

Having run into similar problems, I have a cludge of a work-around:
Use Inkscape to make a graphic file of the glyph, put that graphic in an image box in Scribus,
and paste it over the finished text where you have left an appropriate space,
then group the text box and the glyph and don't edit the text any more.
I have a folder full of miscellaneous musical symbols. I can paste them on top of
text or on top of imported staff notation graphics.
Sorry I wasn't timely with this reply, I only visit when I have a problem!
jack
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: jack_cat on July 25, 2019, 05:16:35 PM
I add one more point that may be relevant to this problem:

I have one not-so-unusual glyph I use regularly, a musical "natural" sign which I take from the font "Times Scale Degrees". When I am using the Story Editor, if I try to use this character with "Insert > Glyph", a forward slash is inserted instead. In order to make this symbol show correctly, I have to edit the text directly in the text frame; then when I use "Insert > Glyph" the symbol shows correctly. If I then re-edit in Story Editor, it may disappear and become a forward slash again, and then I have to re-select it in the text frame and insert it again. This is the only glyph I use that behaves this way; other glyphs taken from a variety of fonts show correctly without issue. When I edit text in the Story Editor now, I just write, e.g. "B-nat" and then replace the -nat with the glyph after exiting the Story Editor.

Therefore, if having difficulty getting a glyph to display correctly as in the problem described by the OP, it may be useful to try it both in Story Editor and in the text frame, and see if one or the other works to display it correctly. 

If I were unable to get it to show correctly at all, then I would make a graphic out of it and insert it as an image, as noted in my previous post. For use in a passage of text, of course, this is very inconvenient and is a last resort.
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on July 25, 2019, 06:25:46 PM
i had a bit of issues with following the full description... so a question from my side:

if you only use the in text frame, does it work correctly?

ciao
a.l.e
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: jack_cat on July 25, 2019, 07:46:49 PM
Yes, when I insert the natural sign from the Times Scale Degrees font directly into the text frame using "Insert > Glyph", it displays correctly and also exports to PDF correctly. I am perfectly happy with the way this works.

However, if I edit the text frame in the Story Editor and change the Style of the paragraph containing the inserted natural-sign glyph, the glyph will revert to the forward slash which occupies that position in other fonts.

I don't consider this a problem, since I have a working solution, and I just change it back in the text frame. I am always all in favor of the workaround that works the quickest. From the POV of you all, the intrepid programmers, this may be a problem in the Scribus code; to me, it's a problem solved.

I suggest that the OP might try inserting the problem "down-bow" glyph of the original post directly into the text frame instead of using the Story Editor, as a simple test, before seeking more elaborate solutions. It would be perfectly reasonable to do most of the editing in Story Editor as usual, and only add the glyph afterwards directly into the text frame when everything else is in order. If it works, great. If not, ehhh, on to the next idea.

Since the OP insists that other programs use the font, and since he or she clearly said that the problem occurred when using the Story Editor, I think that my experience with the natural-sign glyph also not showing correctly when inserted in the Story Editor, might be relevant and might provide a solution which will work even if it does not solve the issue on a programming level.

As a musician, I observe that there have been various issues that have arisen between Scribus and music notation programs in general, since staff notation is a specialized non-text symbolic language which in my experience is best treated in Scribus with imported image files. There are a lot of fonts that attempt to make musical symbols into text, and some are better than others. "Lilypond Book" is the program that, ideally, totally bridges that gap, but Scribus regardless of its faults is infinitely easier to learn to use than Lilypond.
Title: Re: missing glyphs
Post by: a.l.e on July 26, 2019, 10:29:24 AM
all i can say: try to do as much of you editing in the frame and avoid the story editor except for the cases where it's really useful.

the story editor is not state of the art and, nowadays, should be avoided.