[Fontconfig] Fwd: [Fontconfig-bugs] [Bug 71691] New: Defaulting <cachedir> to LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE for Win32 build

[Jehan Pagès]

Hi,

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Akira TAGOH <akira at tagoh.org> wrote:
> Thanks for the comment, even though it doesn't count as an additional
> +1, any input would be appreciated.
>
> I've read those reports and indeed changing the default cachedir for
> Win32 to LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE would helps but the issue they
> were originally complaining won't be completely gone because the cache
> is still being generated at first. it needs to be taken care by those
> package maintainer then.

I'd say there are 2 issues: the first launch, and next launches on
disappearing font cache.

For the first launch issue, obviously such a change would not change
anything. For the second problem though, this would fix it.
And actually this second issue is much more annoying than the first
one. The first launch occurs only once per definition. So well, you
may have a very slow first launch, happens once and for all. Annoying
but not the worst. On the other hand, having slow startup at random
points in time (random = each time the TMP dir is emptied for a reason
or another), that's a *lot* more annoying for the user.

> Aside from that, they could share their applications installed with
> users on the box though, I think generating caches per user instance
> is redundant. it's what this change really means. it could be one of
> options for packages but if there are any better places for
> system-wide caches, that would be better for default path IMHO.

Well I agree that system-wide cache is better in many cases. But it
seems that Windows logics does not share much between users. When I
search the web, it sems most applications would save their cache per
user.
This said, maybe such a standard shared directory exist, but I could
not find this information...

Note, while searching for system-wide cache dir, I found this
Wikipedia page saying that thumbnail cache on Windows is also in the
user local AppData:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_thumbnail_cache#Centralized_thumbnail_cache

Of course for thumbnails, that may make more sense, security-wise,
since you may not want other users to be able to browse thumbnails of
images you saw, while fonts are usually less problematic, though I
could imagine cases of users using paid font with limited licensing
not wanting to leak information about these fonts too. In any case,
using the locale appdata seems kind of a practice used by Microsoft
software for caching.

> Given that we settled down the default system-wide cache dir and it

In any case, even if you find and want to settle down for a
system-wide dir, I think you need to find another one than the current
one. One which is not wiped out regularly (so a dir not labelled as
"temporary" basically).

> can be shared among applications, I'm not sure if it's worth trying,
> but if having official package for Win32 helps for this issue, let me
> think about it. or any volunteers are welcome of course :)

Ahah. I'm more of a developer rather than packager. Sorry. :p
In any case, even though I agree a common fontconfig package would be
in an ideal world, I think this ideal world would also need a package
manager with dependency management for Windows. In other words, this
ideal world is not likely to happen soon.
Basically a user who installs a software does not want to have to run
10 installers, that had to be searched from 10 different websites
(some users already have problems somehow finding this one
installer!). If not mistaken, I think our GIMP installer for instance
would even embed the GTK+ installation too.

Unfortunately the state of Windows software management seems so bad to
me that developers have to make compromise and embed all dependencies
in their unique installer. So I don't think an official win32 package
would be the solution adopted by the various software using
fontconfig. Not unless fontconfig was as much a standard as it is on
Linux (unfortunately I feel it unlikely to happen). So I think a
better default cache dir is the best solution for now.

Jehan

>
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Jehan Pagès
> <jehan.marmottard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Akira TAGOH <akira at tagoh.org> wrote:
>>> Anyone who uses fontconfig on Win32 has any comments on this?
>>> I'm not even familiar with Win32 so much. so I have no idea if we have
>>> any concerns once this change is applied. any kinda +1/-1 as a comment
>>> would be appreciated.
>>
>> Well I'm the reporter, so I guess that don't count as an additional
>> +1, but just searching "fontconfig cache directory" on the web, I can
>> find several bug reports and discussion about it. On launchpad for
>> Ubuntu for instance, I found 2 bug reports:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1021815
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1196373
>>
>> They are both for inkscape and are about the same path issue. I've
>> seen other reports for VLC or mplayer, related to fontconfig cache
>> taking time to generate, regularly, but they did not say what was the
>> actual issue in the reports when closing it. So I can't say for sure
>> that was the same path issue.
>>
>> In any case, the main problem is that Windows builds of various
>> software will likely bundle fontconfig in their installer. So that
>> makes as many fontconfig built by people who did hope that the default
>> would be ok and won't try to change the configure settings. There is
>> hardly one fontconfig installation and a knowledgeable maintainer for
>> this specific package. So flawless default config prevents bad
>> surprises in the various projects (like GIMP, Inkscape, etc.) who make
>> win32 builds.
>>
>> And in any case, it is always better to have reasonable defaults for a
>> given platform, isn't it? :-)
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Jehan
>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: <bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org>
>>> Date: Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:42 PM
>>> Subject: [Fontconfig-bugs] [Bug 71691] New: Defaulting <cachedir> to
>>> LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE for Win32 build
>>> To: fontconfig-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
>>>
>>>
>>> Priority medium
>>> Bug ID 71691
>>> Assignee fontconfig-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> Summary Defaulting <cachedir> to LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE for Win32 build
>>> QA Contact freedesktop at behdad.org
>>> Severity minor
>>> Classification Unclassified
>>> OS Windows (All)
>>> Reporter jehan at zemarmot.net
>>> Hardware All
>>> Status NEW
>>> Version unspecified
>>> Component conf
>>> Product fontconfig
>>>
>>> Created attachment 89343 [details]
>>> Defaulting to LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm a GIMP dev. We had some user telling us that the default value for
>>> fontconfig cache may not be the most appropriate on Windows (cf.
>>> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=703331).
>>>
>>> Well I'm not expert on Windows, so I can't say if
>>> LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE is the best fit (but saving in the non-roaming
>>> data repository sounds acceptable). On the other hand, saving in the %TEMP%
>>> directory though may indeed not be the best idea, if the TEMP directory concept
>>> is anything like on UNIX (where you should not expect the TEMP directories to
>>> have the same contents at your next reboot. It may, but on many installation,
>>> temp dirs are emptied). And apparently, according to our user, it is indeed
>>> often emptied on Windows too.
>>>
>>> So since you already have the implementation for
>>> LOCAL_APPDATA_FONTCONFIG_CACHE, I'm proposing to simply use it as the default
>>> for Windows.
>>> Patch attached.
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> You are receiving this mail because:
>>>
>>> You are the assignee for the bug.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fontconfig-bugs mailing list
>>> Fontconfig-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/fontconfig-bugs
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Akira TAGOH
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fontconfig mailing list
>>> Fontconfig at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/fontconfig
>
>
>
> --
> Akira TAGOH