https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151122

--- Comment #30 from Manu <[email protected]> ---
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #24)
> (In reply to Manu from comment #19)
> > we could have a parameter in the options saying what are our
> > preferred languages,
> 
> We already have it: The font selection dialog includes language indications.
> 
> > and then the font list indicate which font is (un)compatible.
> 
> Either that, or a proper filter.
> 
> We must not give up on an appropriately decorated or filtered list of fonts.
> You can make alternative suggestions, like the ability to customize the
> sample text in a different issue. I support that, but not instead of
> resolving this one.

I think there is a misunderstanding, and I think I understand why you believe
there is a bug. I will try to explain even if I'm not a specialist, therefore
if I'm wrong I apologize.

When we observe the Character dialogbox, we see in the tab "Font" (or
Typeface):
- 3 tabs for the writing system : Western, Asian, Complex
- the Font list (with the textbox for research)
- the properties for the font: style, size, language, functionalities

This is the misunderstanding in my opinion. The combobox Language is not a
filter, it is a property we assign (like the size) to the selected font. 
I explain: in the font file, the definition of each shape can be unique or
dependant of the language. This is a problem created by Unicode. Everyone know
that both latin and cyrillic letter A have the same shape, but not the same
code because there is a latin block (set of characters) and a cyrillic block.
But for some reason, one letter could have a different shape in two different
languages and this is the only difference between these two languages, that's
why Unicode doesn't have a specific block (or character code) for the second
language, and that's why we can assign a property in order to let the font
display the right shape, because this is the only way to see this shape.
Therefore, this language property, is only useful when the font has different
shapes for this language. For example, I believe it's useless for English or
French (all our characters have a unique code and shape).

That's why I said "we could have a parameter saying what are our preferred
languages".
And that's why saying "The font selection dialog includes language
indications." is partially wrong, because it is not the purpose of this
property.


When we observe the Special Character dialogbox, we see:
- the textbox for character research
- the combobox for the font list
- the combobox for the block of characters
For example, if I select the block cyrillic, then I go into the combobox for
the font list, I can go up and down, and try to see which font can display this
block correctly.
But this system works only one block at a time, and it's long to process
manually, and we must memorize all the results... I'm not Rain Man guys...

What we can conclude for the Character dialogbox: it miss a filter with the
block of characters (or languages) we want to use. Eyal already said it with
her words, maybe it is more clear now.
Maybe this filter could be in the options like I suggested (we select the
languages, or the blocks we want to use), maybe it could be directly before the
list of fonts (but I can't see something simple, because only one language is a
problem in my opinion).

For comparaison, we can already see this filtering system in
https://fonts.google.com
we choose the writing system, then the language, then the filter displays only
the fonts compatibles.
The problem here is that we can only select one language.
I prefer my suggestion because I propose to select all the languages (or block)
we want to use. Then the filter displays the fonts compatible or not.

We can have different options:
- exclusive filter (a font must have compatibility with all selected languages)
- non exclusive filter (a font must have at least one selected languages)
and the most important: it is written next to the name of the font (full
compatibility, or only this language).
And as the character set is not the same for different language, that's why a
multilanguage lorem ipsum is important (but I know, I can define it myself in
the document before I open the dialogbox) if we want to see the result in
advance.

I hope it helps.

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