With my testing of Slackware Current I ran into an interesting Firefox anomaly.
When I installed Current to my testing partitions I did not update to Firefox 3.03. I kept version 2.0.0.17 installed. (I need to research and update/test all add-ons before moving to version 3.x.) Therefore all program files are the same in both 12.1 and Current, all chrome and content style sheets, the same prefs.js and user.js, etc.
When I opened a page from my web site in Current I noticed the font was different:
Current Snapshot
12.1 Snapshot
As might be expected, I thought the problem was with something in Current. After some head scratching I finally realized the page was rendering correctly in Current and not in 12.1. The style sheet calls for:
font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif;
I have all of these fonts installed on my system.
As can be seen by the snapshots, the page is correctly using Arial in Current but Verdana in 12.1.
I've tried various sequential combinations for the style sheet font order, and they all display as expected in 12.1 except when Arial is placed first in the order. In 12.1, Firefox ignores the style sheet directive to first use Arial. I can manually configure the fonts preferences to ignore the style sheet and then Firefox displays Arial when I select that font as the default. I also use Arial as my system font for my KDE menus, toolbars, desktop, etc. The problem is not the Arial font.
Yet there is no such problem in Current. Firefox correctly displays the font that is first in the style sheet order.
Loading Firefox in safe-mode did not change the results. Creating a new profile did not. Creating a new profile and using safe mode did not help. The problem affects all user accounts. The page display correctly with Arial in Konqueror in both 12.1 and Current. The problem occurs in Xfce too. No other app is affected.
I'm glad the page displays correctly in Current but I'd appreciate help learning what is causing this font display anomaly in 12.1.
I think Verdana is more readable on screen than Arial. I plan to modify the style sheet accordingly, but I'm puzzled by this display anomaly.
Thanks for any help.
