We have published the information about font configuration in Java (http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/intl/fontconfig.html), and some Java developers have modified fontconfig.properties themselves so that they can use their favorite fonts (or in order to display non-English characters on platforms which aren't supported by Sun).

Unfortunately, it's not easy to customize fontconfig.properties. We should make font-customization in Java easier.


The followings are some of situations that Java users want to modify fontconfig.properties:

  Windows Vista was released with fonts which support JIS X 0213(often called "JIS2004"). One of them is a new font, Meiryo.
  If a Vista user wants to use Meiryo as a logical font in Java app, or if an XP user wants to use such a font which supports JIS2004, fontconfig.properties needs to be customized.

  It's very common to customize fonts among Linux users because there are many beautiful fonts (for free).


It's predictable that some users may face problems by incorrect customization. But even so, we should allow Java users' customization and support it as much as possible.