Re: Suggest installing more fonts?

[Stefan Monnier]

>> - Does the problem only affect Emacs and not other applications?
>>   If so why?
> AFAIK, "most other applications", at least those I could investigate,
> come with fixed lists of fonts to use for each script.  These lists
> are maintained for each OS and are adjusted as the OS version and the
> fonts change.  This method has its advantages and also its
> disadvantages; I think both are quite clear.

But then it means that "installing more fonts" is not really the solution
that the user needs to follow, right?

>> - Do users immediately run to search the internet for answers without
>>   even trying to interact any further with their Emacs instance to
>>   investigate the problem first?
>> - If they do interact with Emacs, what do they do?  Do they move the
>>   mouse over the tofu?  Do they look for some help some other way?
> The rational thing to do is to use "C-u C-x =", see the script of the
> problematic character(s), and then find and install some font that
> covers those characters.

But from what you said above it's not just a question of installing
fonts (since what you wrote before suggests that the same problem
doesn't affect other applications on the same system).

Also I suspect that this requires non-trivial knowledge:
- `C-u C-x =`, which most beginning Emacs users won't know.
- The notion of "script" and how to find it out.
- How to know which font covers which script.
- Potentially how to tell Emacs which font to use for which script.


        Stefan