STIX fonts do not work with Opera and Safari

[fred-wang]

STIX fonts are currently disabled for Opera and Safari. If I remember correctly, that's because these browsers have difficulty to pick some characters. Hopefully, this browser bug will be fixed in the future. I open this issue to track this browser bug, to write testcases to verify it and possibly enable STIX fonts again.

=> Address Later, Browser Bug

[fred-wang]

48e495e9dc enables the STIX fonts.

The following page is not displayed correctly in Safari (only the non plane1 characters appear):

http://devel.mathjax.org/testing/testsuite/MathMLToDisplay/Characters/Variants/double-struck-ref.html?mathJaxPath=http://devel.mathjax.org/mathjax/fred-wang/issue265/

I don't know exactly which characters can be used to verify the issue with Opera.

[fred-wang]

I can't test Safari on Mac, but the bug is Windows specific, right?

[dpvc]

Yes, the Safari bug is windows-specific, and STIX is disabled only there. I should check the most recent Safari and see if there is any improvement. The characters affected are only the Plane1 characters.

For Opera, I will have to go back and look to see what ones they are (there were lots last I looked). Perhaps they have improved as well.

[fred-wang]

I had the bug in Safari+Windows last time I checked and I don't think a new version has been published since then.

I don't know about Opera, but the Plane1 characters looked OK, IIRC.

[dpvc]

Surprisingly, Opera does seem to access Plane1, but it was a whole raft of other characters that it had trouble with. I will check again with a current version when I get the chance.

[dpvc]

OK, I did some checking of current versions of Opera and Safari/Win. Safari/Win still doesn't handle Plane1, but everything else is OK. Opera is a little more complicated. Opera on Mac OS X doesn't seem to be able to access any of the STIX fonts (at least I can't get it to). On Windows XP, Opera 12 can't access Plane1 or half of the PUA, but seems to be OK with everything else. On Windows 7, Opera 12 can access Plane1, but again fails with half of the PUA. That includes characters like the calligraphic letters (from \cal) along with some lesser-used items. I have not checked any linux-based versions of Opera; perhaps they can handle the PUA. Perhaps you could check to see if Opera displays \cal ABCD properly for you?

In any case, it looks like we still need to disable STIX for Safari/Win and Opera on OSX and Windows. An argument could be made, I suppose, for enabling it on Windows 7, but the lack of the calligraphic font is important.

[fred-wang]

Perhaps you could check to see if Opera displays \cal ABCD properly for you?

This works on IE and Firefox only (not Safari, Opera or Chrome). tested on Linux & Windows.

In any case, it looks like we still need to disable STIX for Safari/Win and Opera on OSX and Windows

Yes, I just wanted to have a testcase to test future versions.

[dpvc]

Hmmm, if \cal fails for you in Chrome, does that mean we should disable STIX for Chrome on Linux and Windows, too?

[fred-wang]

That would be good to do more testing before.

[fred-wang]

OK, I've published the test here:

http://devel.mathjax.org/testing/mathjax/tests/issue265.html

Not sure what I did last time, but when it failed it displayed "normal" ABCDE. Now it displays Chinese, shapes or other incorrect characters.

So currently, I see incorrect rendering on

• Chrome Linux
• Opera Linux & Windows

But contrary to what I said last time, it renders correctly with Chrome/Safari Windows.

[dpvc]

Yes, Chinese and shapes is what I see for Opera in Windows in part of the PUA. I have not had trouble with the PUA in Chrome or Safari in Windows, so that is consistent with what I see.

I'm sorry to hear that Chrome on Linux does have problems.

I know that font issues are going to be important in the next release after the bug-fix release we have been working on, so I suspect we will want to look at this again in the near future.

[pkra]

Marking this as abandoned.