Spaces show up as blocks

[RossComputerGuy]

Whenever a space character is rendered, it shows up as a block. I've tried lots of different fonts and I don't think it has to do with the fonts. The 2d context is causing this. Can we please have this fixed?

[sidorares]

Sure, I'll have a look.
A bit of documentation on how text is rendered with ntk

when you call .fillText it splits string into glyphs and calls

ntk/lib/renderingcontext_2d.js

Lines 144 to 146 in c623358

	var ff = this._glyphSet.fontface;
	var glyphs = String.fromCharCode.apply(null, text.split('').map( function(c) { return ff.charcode2glyph[c.charCodeAt(0)] }));
	Render.CompositeGlyphs32(3, this._backgroundPicture.id, this.picture.id, 0, this._glyphSet.id, 0, 0, [ [x, y, glyphs ] ] );

( "split into glyphs" is actually much difficult task in real life and would require harfbuzz library to du correctly, but for Latin scripts it mostly works juts by treating characters as glyphs )

When you specify font via something like `ctx.font = "Courier 10pt" this code is used:

ntk/lib/renderingcontext_2d.js

Lines 370 to 414 in c623358

	RC._setFont = function(weight, style, size, unit, family) {
	var fc = require('./fontconfig.js');
	var pattern = {
	family: family,
	style: style,
	weight: weight
	};
	var match = fc.listFontsSync(pattern);
	var face = new FontFace(this.window.app);
	face.loadFont(match.path);
	if (!_fonts[family])
	_fonts[family] = {};
	_fonts[family][weight + '-' + style] = face;
	this._setFace(face, size);
	};
	RC.addFont = function(font) {
	this._fonts = this._fonts || {};
	if (this._fonts[font.name]) return;
	this._fonts[font.name] = font;
	};
	RC.__defineSetter__('font', function(val) {
	if (!val) return;
	if ('string' == typeof val) {
	var font;
	if (font = parseFontStyle(val)) {
	this._lastFontString = val;
	if (_fonts && _fonts[font.family]) {
	var fontObj = _fonts[font.family];
	var type = font.weight + '-' + font.style;
	var fontFace = fontObj[type];
	if (fontFace)
	return this._setFace(fontFace, font.size);
	}
	this._setFont(
	font.weight
	, font.style
	, font.size
	, font.unit
	, font.family);
	}
	}
	});

• font file is located using font matcher library
• file is loaded using truetype2 moduly
• glyphset is created and each rendered glyph is uploaded to the server ( I'd like to change this part so that glyphs are uploaded lazily only at the point you use them, not the whole font upfront )

"Spaces show up as blocks" problem is likely located somewhere in last two steps ^.