Irtapil

"Arial" is a commercial font which is only available on a limited range of systems, so what you did is probably not as helpful as you thought it would be... AnonMoos (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@AnonMoos: I am aware Arial is a commercial font, but it is more likely to be already installed on a reader's computer than any of the free fonts which contain the applicable characters. Most people won't want to install a new font to read a small detail on a page, free or not, and if they don't have Arial font, won't it just default to something else?

Which systems don't include Arial? Linux? That's surely a far smaller number of readers than the people who would already have a free font installed that contains characters like dotless ba. Irtapil (talk) 17:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Also probably many mobile systems, to start with... AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@AnonMoos: this is what it looked like before i changed the font:

 

it seems likely not everyone was seeing that, or it would be fixed already, and the people who see the same error seem more likely to also be windows users, or have the same glitchy font that comes ahead of Arial in the queue? Irtapil (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

the lang-ar had a less streaky option Arabic: ﷽, but it was illegibly small, in a table you can increase font size, but in line with text that's not a winner.   {{script|Arab|﷽}} ﷽‎ gives the same error. Irtapil (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Script/Arabic "Amiri (appears feathery on Windows; errors with combining shadda with kasra and in Rohingya [1])" ﷽ {{font|font=amiri|﷽}} that font looks fine in other programs, just goes weird for that character in chrome.Reply

i'm still not sure what you mean by "not as helpful as you thought it would be" ... how helpg=ful did you think i thought it'd be? Irtapil (talk) 19:06, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

It's finicky appearance-hacking that only works for some people. and so is not a general-purpose solution to the problem. AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@AnonMoos: what would your idealised solution be then? do you actually have a better idea or are you just complaining that my quick fix for a small problem isn't perfect?

As far as i gather the effect of forcing Arial font displays Arial if it is present then if it's not installed it goes back to whatever it would have displayed without that setting? so it possibly helps a lot of viewers, and has no effect for others? The "feathering" mention on the help page sounds like it is likely to be just a windows thing, and Arial comes with windows, so it likely solved it for everyone who has the problem.

The problem seemed likely to be restricted to that particular obscure character, a generalised solution (e.g. editing the template font list) would likely create WAY more problems than it solved.

i could work out the offending font - Amiri - and uninstall it from my own computer, but that solves it for only ONE user, and Amiri displays other characters fine, without streaking into the toolbars.

what proportion of users would actually not have Arial? i do wonder if some people might have Arial without the full character set? but if they don't have the Arabic characters from Arial the chances of them having a specific Arabic font are even lower.

you say Arial only works for some people, but is there any stable and extensive Arabic font they are more likely to have installed? i didn't just pick the most common font in general, i picked the font with the most extensive Arabic charachar set, out of the fonts likely to be installed on an English speakers computer. the SIL fonts would work too, but they are way less common than Arial. do you actually have a better idea? if you want to add a list of all of the fonts other than Amiri to the formatting on that one character, just go do it rather than complaining that i didn't. i even worked out which don't was causing the problem, if you want to add a solution for the tiny proportion of people who don't have serial, just go do it. but they likely weren't even getting the same glitch, so it's a bit pointless.

Irtapil (talk) 01:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

old {{script|Arab|﷽}} ﷽‎

new {{font|font=arial|{{lang|ar|﷽}}}} ﷽

no lang tag {{font|font=arial|﷽}}}} ﷽

no lang tag amiri {{font|font=amiri|﷽}}}} ﷽

Irtapil (talk) 02:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

those all display identically on my android, so, the solution does nothing, but there was also no problem to solve. if you want a solution that applies to people who do not have the problem, then that's a fairly eccentric approach...

if you actually do have a better idea i am keen to hear it. i often use arial because pages use have obscure characters, and some fonts will have these but not connect them properly, so they look completely different. i add the appropriate lang tag lang