Georgia supported on Jelly Bean 4.2.2 ?

[cben]

http://fontfamily.io/Georgia claims Georgia exists (green) on android 4.2.2. Should be yellow. I'm pretty sure it never existed in android, but there is an alias, which used to be DroidSerif and now (since 5.0?) became NotoSerif: https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/a08f0f8f453bb192dd0c4cd25a5aeb05986805fc#diff-eddd3df16ecaba63bd2858a059863c19R85

Test just to be sure: http://codepen.io/cben/pen/ByvKNr => 4.2: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/livetests/2806630/snapshots/z90115b8903e5f2677b8 5.0: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/livetests/2806828/snapshots/zdd9a6cbc735e27e833c (can't say if Droid or Noto, ASCII looks the same) real Georgia on OS X: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/livetests/2806637/snapshots/zab2c51057cc298bc90a

All I know about android font-families: http://stackoverflow.com/a/22555625/239657

[zachleat]

Hm, your crossbrowsertesting links are 404-ing.

Nonetheless, I’m not yet convinced this is true.

http://jsbin.com/negugi/1

If it matches Droid Serif (which is only available in CSS as serif), the middle line would match perfectly on Android 4.2, which it doesn’t.

[cben]

oops. public links: 4.2: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i866dfd0fa0b9da1/livetests/2806630/snapshots/z90115b8903e5f2677b8 5.0: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i866dfd0fa0b9da1/livetests/2806828/snapshots/zdd9a6cbc735e27e833c OSX: http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i866dfd0fa0b9da1/livetests/2806637/snapshots/zab2c51057cc298bc90a

Your test is more convincing, except the middle does line up perfectly for me: 4.2 on Sauce labs: https://saucelabs.com/bugs/dc7adf6059b14f278bd250cbd6f25ec7 physical 4.2.2 (BLU Advance 4.0) zoomed in: also on 4.4.2 Lenovo Yoga Tablet B8080.

I've seen some rumors Samsung has changed some fonts in their android skins but haven't seen evidence.

[cben]

Hmm. http://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i866dfd0fa0b9da1/screenshots/zb0d42ce84e522027013?size=small&type=windowed Georgia == serif both on stock Nexuses and Samsung devices. And to my eyes all look like Droid/Noto Serif. But that's all with Chrome.

my 4.2.2 BLU phone with:

• stock android browser also lines up the middle line.
• in firefox all 3 lines look clean with no overlapping! I believe FF uses its own fonts and apparently disregrads system font aliases?

What phone / browser did you test?

Googling suggests Samsung ships several UI fonts and lets you choose — including a "Samsung Sans"; but apparently there is no "Samsung Serif". Not sure if those fafect only samsung apps or everyting. And Samsung also mutated the stock browser...

[zachleat]

My real-world device is a Samsung Galaxy SIII Mini GT-I8200L Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean).

FWIW I was able to reproduce this in browserstack on an emulated Google Nexus 4 (Android 4.2).

[cben]

Also lines up on Nexus 5 (android 5.0.1) in Chrome.

Your first screenshot looks like (what google tells me) Samsung's browser looks like; the second looks like stock android browser. I suspect if you try Chrome on your SIII it will also show georgia as Droid Serif.

I've added real Droid Serif to http://s.codepen.io/cben/debug/ByvKNr? (and also tried WhatFont but it's pretty useless here...). If you care to screenshot it (preferably on-device shot, long-press Power+Home), we could try WhatTheFont and similar.

[zachleat]

Yes, the original test screenshot I posted was from the stock Browser app. But in fact both Chrome and Firefox on my SIII show the same result as the original screenshot (none of the lines match up). Do you have any real 4.2 devices to test on? It might be an emulator inconsistency.

[cben]

Hmm. My real BLU Advance 4.0 phone (4.2.2), Lenovo Yoga Tablet B8080 (4.4.2) and Nexus 5 (5.0.1) all line up in middle line, both Chrome and stock.

But firefox (on the 4.2.2 BLU phone) does this:

I should admit that I don't know what exactly goes on and I'm only waving an accusing finger at the general direction of Samsung because it doesn't fit my assumptions :-)

[zachleat]

Let’s revisit what my jsbin actually means, I think we are both a bit lost here :D For the purposes of this explanation let’s just look at the top two lines of the jsbin (not all three).

Two lines, 3 distinct cases:

Two mismatches (text looks jumbled and overlapping): the fallback is NOT used (Georgia is a unique font—supported).

Two matches (text looks normal, no overlaps): Georgia is not supported, fallback is used on both lines.

One mismatch, one match: Georgia is supported but is also aliased to the fallback that is a match.

SO, at the very least, we can confirm that Georgia is supported (in all cases, except Firefox which we’ll handle separately at #21) as your original comment pointed out. However, looks like some Androids alias serif and some don’t.

[cben]

Good summary.

Two mismatches (text looks jumbled and overlapping): the fallback is NOT used (Georgia is a unique font—supported).

There is still a remote chance that Georgia is aliased to something(*) different than the the default serif. I'm curious to see non-overlapping Georgia (esp. italic) vs serif screenshot to see visually what each looks like. (remembered a trick: AdobeBlank is a font covering all unicode with a blank glyph. used it in http://codepen.io/cben/full/ByvKNr so now if you see anything at all, it's that font or alias but not fallback)

In any case, http://fontfamily.io/Georgia currently saying that 4.2.2 supported it while 4.4.2 dropped support and aliases to Droid Serif is strange. The variance is probably along manufacturers, not versions.

(*)I caught myself spelling that word "samsing" :-)

[zachleat]

Found a good source for this: https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/data/fonts/fonts.xml#L50

It’s actually aliased to Noto Serif.