A few months ago, I’ve covered font related changes in Snow Leopard in this post, that was perceived from developer preview build 10A286, after I got build 10A335 and 10A354, several changes can be observed.

1. Heiti SC and Heiti TC we covered earlier are now used as the default fallback fonts for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, respectively. We can see this via the content of the default font fallback configuration file of Core Text:

   $ cat /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/\
       Frameworks/CoreText.framework/Resources/DefaultFontFallbacks.plist
   ...
       <array>
           <!-- for Traditional Chinese, use STHeiti TC -->
           <string>zh-Hant</string>
           <string>STHeitiTC-Light</string>
       </array>
       <array>
           <!-- for Simplified Chinese, use STHeiti SC -->
           <string>zh-Hans</string>
           <string>STHeitiSC-Light</string>
       </array>
   ...
   

2. “Menlo“, the monospaced font we mentioned previously, are apparently used as the default coding font for Xcode 3.2 now. Apple even filed a couple of trademark registrations in US and EU for that name.

   

   Menlo Regular in Xcode 3.2

   Personally, I still prefer the good-old-Monaco.

3. A pair of new Chinese OpenType fonts called Hiragino Sans GB and Hiragino Sans CNS have been added into recent builds, for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, respectively. Both fonts have two widths: W3 and W6.

   

   Hiragino Sans GB W3

   

   Hiragino Sans GB W6

   

   Hiragino Sans GB W3

   These fonts were announced by Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd., they are specifically designed for Chinese users, but in a traditional Japanese Kanji style. These fonts can be seen as “sans-serif” fonts (hence the name) or “Gothic” fonts in Japanese term, or “heiti” in Chinese term.

   However, Hiragino Sans CNS, the font family for traditional Chinese appeared in 10A335 is removed suspiciously in 10A354. I wonder if Apple will added it back in the official release.

   For comparision, Microsoft licensed a pair of Chinese fonts called “Microsoft Yahei” and “Microsoft Jhenghei” in Windows Vista, which are somewhat similar to Hiragino Sans fonts, at least to my eyes.

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