Ligatures don't work after the last update

[bugental]

Ligatures (for example: æ, st, ff etc.) don't work in paint.net; in previous versions you could force it by finding the PresentationFramework.dll file in Windows --> Microsoft.NET --> ... --> WPF and manually changing get_HistoricalLigatures and set_HistoricalLigatures from 'false' to 'true', now this workaround seems to doesn't work anymore - maybe that's because of app using self-containing deployment of .NET? If those changes are made in PresentationFramework.dll file found in paint.net folder, the app crashes. What should I do to get my historical ligatures back?

Edited November 9, 2021 by bugental

[Rick Brewster]

Modifying WPF shouldn't have had any affect anyway since Paint.NET doesn't use WPF's text rendering at all, it uses DirectWrite.

 

It seems to be working fine for me here, no modifications necessary. I just copy-pasted the text from your post.

 

 

[Rick Brewster]

DirectWrite does support this via DWRITE_FONT_FEATURE_TAG_HISTORICAL_LIGATURES, which is documented here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/dwrite/ne-dwrite-dwrite_font_feature_tag as:

 

Quote

DWRITE_FONT_FEATURE_TAG_HISTORICAL_LIGATURES
Replaces the default (current) forms with the historical alternates. Some ligatures were in common use in the past, but appear anachronistic today. Some fonts include the historical forms as alternates, so they can be used for a 'period' effect.

 

This doesn't seem like a good idea to enable for all text editing, and it's such a niche feature I don't think it's worth adding as a button in the toolbar or something.