How to disable some font

Help
1

I have a hand-written style Chinese font in my ~/.local/share/fonts. However, it override my system side Chinese font:

Screenshot from 2023-06-03 19-26-51
Screenshot from 2023-06-03 19-26-51780×520 58.1 KB

If I remove it, the Chinese font can recovery to normal:

Screenshot from 2023-06-03 19-28-07
Screenshot from 2023-06-03 19-28-07780×520 58.2 KB

However, I don’t want to remove it due to sometimes I need to use it. So I try to write ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <dir prefix="xdg">fonts</dir>
  <match target="font">
    <test name="family" qual="any">
      <string>方正静蕾简体</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="priority" mode="assign">
      <priority>99</priority>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

I expect to decrease its priority to 99 to make system side Chinese font override it. However, nothing changed. What something wrong I did?

The following is the information of the hand-written style font:

$ exiftool 方正静蕾简体.ttf
ExifTool Version Number         : 12.62
File Name                       : 方正静蕾简体.ttf
File Size                       : 16 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2023:04:12 16:07:50+08:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2023:06:03 18:48:31+08:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2023:06:03 19:27:43+08:00
File Permissions                : -rw-r--r--
File Type                       : TTF
File Type Extension             : ttf
MIME Type                       : application/x-font-ttf
Copyright                       : Copyright(c) Founder Corporation.2007
Font Family                     : FZJingLeiS-R-GB
Font Subfamily                  : Regular
Font Subfamily ID               : Founder:FZJingLeiS-R-GB.Regular
Font Name                       : FZJingLeiS-R-GB
Name Table Version              : 1.00
PostScript Font Name            : FZJLJW--GB1-0
Trademark                       : By Founder Corporation.
Copyright (en-US)               : Copyright(c) Founder Corporation.2007..Modified by Kelvin 2008-9-17
Font Family (en-US)             : FZJingLei
Font Subfamily (en-US)          : Regular
Font Subfamily ID (en-US)       : Founder:FZJingLei - Kelvin
Font Name (en-US)               : FZJingLei - Kelvin
Name Table Version (en-US)      : 1.00
Trademark (en-US)               : By Founder Corporation. 北大方正
Copyright (zh-CN)               : Copyright(c) Founder Corporation.2007..Modified by Kelvin 2008-9-17
Font Family (zh-CN)             : 方正静蕾简体
Font Subfamily (zh-CN)          : Regular
Font Subfamily ID (zh-CN)       : Founder:方正静蕾简体 - Kelvin
Font Name (zh-CN)               : 方正静蕾简体 - Kelvin
Name Table Version (zh-CN)      : 1.00
Trademark (zh-CN)               : By Founder Corporation. 北大方正
2

Have you cleared the font-cache in between?
fc-cache -r

3

Thanks, fc-cache -r give me some warning to let me know what something incorrect I write. The correct config referred https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/font_configuration#Whitelisting_and_blacklisting_fonts is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <dir prefix="xdg">fonts</dir>
  <selectfont>
    <rejectfont>
      <pattern>
        <patelt name="family">
          <string>方正静蕾简体</string>
        </patelt>
      </pattern>
    </rejectfont>
  </selectfont>
</fontconfig>
4

If fontconfig’s XML have language server support like jsonschema, it will be easier to find any incorrect syntax for users :smile:

A related issue: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues/369

5

That’s what the DTD is for: fonts.dtd · main · fontconfig / fontconfig · GitLab

6

The following code provides XML language server for me. But the path is too ugly. Is there a better solution?

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "/nix/store/mj6c9ql3jvwlci2vd6smhx3b518jw1ni-fontconfig-2.14.2/share/xml/fontconfig/fonts.dtd">
7

You can use XML catalog to map the system ID (urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd) to the schema path inside a package. For example, I have added one to dbus project. Or you can just create it locally in your Nix shell:

pkgs.mkShell {
  nativeBuildInputs = [
    pkgs.findXMLCatalogs

    (pkgs.writeTextFile {
      name = "fc-xml-catalog";
      text = ''
        <?xml version="1.0"?>
        <catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog">
            <system systemId="urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd" uri="${pkgs.fontconfig.out}/share/xml/fontconfig/fonts.dtd"/>
        </catalog>
      '';
      destination = "/share/xml/fontconfig/catalog.xml";
    })
  ];
}

Note that this requires your language server to support XML catalogs and XML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable (which will be set by findXMLCatalogs). If it is based on libxml2, it should support it out of the box.

8

OK, I’ll ask the upstream if can they add a catalog.xml.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues/369