Fontconfig : regression in 2.13.92-2

[mclegrand]

Hi, we (Inkscape) have noticed a regression on finding fonts in custom directories with the August msys2 update of Fontconfig : https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/1977 : since then, we cannot specify custom font directories (?)

Thanks for any relevant info!

[lazka]

The only change there was for #6661

[lazka]

New version incomming: #7383

[naveen521kk]

Just wondering, why does Inkscape use fontconfig on Windows?
I think Inkscape uses Pango, so Pango uses win32 backend by default, and editing the fontconfig files is super useless...
Because adding a directory to fontconfig's search path, doesn't affect the discovered fonts, when Pango doesn't use it...
I had been breaking my head on this previously, on using with manimpango and only later I found this is because of this backend thing, that Linux uses fontconfig backend by default and not so on Windows, and later made it only a Linux only feature sadly.

[lazka]

From what I remember the fontconfig backend of pango provides more features than the win32 one.

[naveen521kk]

If this bug is true, then Inkscape assumes it uses Fontconfig backend but is actually using win32 backend. Because, I could see their code contains only for fontconfig backend, but it shows font warnings which according to the bug report linked above shouldn't happen.
So it is something which need to be fixed by them.

[naveen521kk]

Also, @lazka how about patching Pango so that it uses Fontconfig backend by default?