[MapServer-users] Multi language worldmap (basemaps)

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

Greetings List,

Some years ago we used https://github.com/MapServer/basemaps/ to create a raw world map based on OSM data (on hindsight, that map already showed 'Tofu'[0] characters.

Trying to refresh this setup, we want multilingual/multiline labels (so the English label/name below the local Locale label/name, IF available)..

Using another OSM setup, I used Google Noto-fonts to have all glyphs/fonts/charactersets needed... that worked great

But now using basemaps: if I load Pakistan, Taiwanese and Afghanistan data, and point to NotoSans-CondensedBold.ttf  NotoSans-Condensed.ttf in my fonts.lst, I still get the three question marks in my Taiwan map...  and mapserver telling me:

[Thu Apr 13 19:52:52.364863 2023] [cgi:error] [pid 52200] [client ::1:37906] AH01215: Unable to find glyph for codepoint 37129. Using ? as fallback.: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mapserv
[Thu Apr 13 19:52:52.364878 2023] [cgi:error] [pid 52200] [client ::1:37906] AH01215: Unable to find glyph for codepoint 29509. Using ? as fallback.: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mapserv
[Thu Apr 13 19:52:52.364893 2023] [cgi:error] [pid 52200] [client ::1:37906] AH01215: Unable to find glyph for codepoint 28525. Using ? as fallback.: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mapserv
[Thu Apr 13 19:52:52.364913 2023] [cgi:error] [pid 52200] [client ::1:37906] AH01215: Unable to find glyph for codepoint 37129. Using ? as fallback.: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mapserv

etc etc...

So no I wonder: SHOULD it be possible to have a world map with all kind of different language names in one mapfile?
OR (as in https://github.com/MapServer/basemaps/blob/main/fonts.lst is there just one font used for a label)?
OR do I have to create a long list of needed fonts (so mapserver can choose from those and pick one which has that 'codepoint'.
OR is defining a Noto ttf not enough?
OR do I miss some point...

Anybody here has some experience with such an issue: create a map with both Khmer, Arabic, Japanese, Ukranian, Chinese and Dutch place name labels :-)

Any pointers appreciated,

Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde

PS reading about https://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-98.html#rfc98, there is some font-cache I can refresh... ???

[0] https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/glossary/tofu