Road Shield does not support Traditional Chinese fonts

Is this a…:
Standard bug
Steps to reproduce this issue:

  1. Use Permalink click “Edit in road shield editor”.
  2. Click the first “省道” option on “Road Shield”.
  3. Enter “11甲” in the “Shield text” field.
  4. Click “Apply”
  5. The Road Shield displays “11” and “NO GLYPTH” at the top and “NO GLYPTH” at the bottom.The Road Shield does not display “11” at the top and “甲” at the bottom as originally intended.

Note: Fixed text should not be used bottom Main road number in Road Shield. Instead, use the Traditional Chinese words “甲/乙/丙/丁/戊/己/庚/辛/壬/癸”.

Environment where the bug occurs…:
ROW
Permalink:
https://waze.com/en-GB/editor?env=row&lat=23.64560&lon=121.48888&zoomLevel=18&segments=281047807
Browser name and version:
Google Chrome, 143.0.7499.170



Taiwan Ministry of Transportation official road signs

1 Like

I’d like to offer a suggestion here. Could you add “支線” after these feeder Road Shield “省道” and “省道快速公路” options?
Because feeder Road Shield “省道” and “省道快速公路” have a Traditional Chinese words “甲/乙/丙/丁/戊/己/庚/辛/壬/癸” which is placed bottom Main road number.

1 Like

The Road Shield “國道” also displays “2” and “NO GLYPTH”. The Road Shield does not display “2甲” as originally intended.

Note: Feeder Road Shield “國道” use the Traditional Chinese words “甲/乙/丙/丁/戊/己/庚/辛/壬/癸” which is placed after Main road number.

Permalink :
https://waze.com/en-GB/editor?env=row&lat=25.06500&lon=121.20955&zoomLevel=19&segments=424586431


1 Like

Hi @honkhongliang,

Thank you for submitting this bug report. I have filed an internal ticket for this case, and the team will review it.

I wonder, do you have examples of road shields where specific Chinese characters or font variations are displayed correctly? If so, could you please share those examples here?

Regards,
Nataliia

1 Like

Hi @Nataliia_Staff, thanks for the follow-up.

Here’s what I’m seeing on my side: currently, road shields do not render Traditional Chinese characters correctly (they show “No Glyph”).

I also checked with @chengkeith on whether we’ve ever configured road shields to render Traditional Chinese properly in the past, and the answer was no. For example, for “11甲”, we’ve had to enter it as “11A” as a workaround.

I know that maintaining the coverage of Traditional Chinese glyphs is much more complex than supporting Latin letters and numbers.To clarify, our current road shields only use the following seven Traditional Chinese suffixes: 甲 / 乙 / 丙 / 丁 / 戊 / 己 / 庚.

Given the scope is limited to just these seven glyphs, could the team add support for them first so we can run a targeted test? If that works, it would cover 100% of the Traditional Chinese characters we currently use in road shields “省道支線”, “省道快速公路支線” and “國道”.

Also, for feeder Road Shield (Alternatively, would “spur routes” be the right term? If there’s a more official term, please let us know so we can use the correct wording.)“省道支線” and “省道快速公路支線”, could the “Shield text” field support a delimiter (e.g., “;”) that the renderer interprets as a line break—splitting the content before/after the delimiter into top and bottom lines?

1 Like

Hi @honkhongliang,

Thank you for sharing the additional information and your experience. I have forwarded everything to the team. I will update you once I have more information.

However, as I recall from past road shield changes, it might be worth contacting the Waze Community Manager responsible for China so they can also highlight the importance of this change from their side.

Let me know if I can do anything else at this moment.

Regards,
Nataliia

Hi @Nataliia_Staff ,

Thank you for the recommendation. This change primarily impacts Taiwan road shields, and Taiwan’s route numbering and shield formats differ from China’s.

To avoid misapplying requirements, I suggest looping in the Taiwan Waze Community Manager (or Taiwan champs) as well to validate the spec and concrete examples/test cases.

Regards,
honkhongliang

1 Like

Hi @honkhongliang,

The engineering team has been addressing this issue; below are the results showing how the shields look now in the testing environment. Could you please take a look and confirm that the added changes meet the requirements?


Thank you in advance!
Nataliia

1 Like

Hi @Nataliia_Staff,

Thanks for the update. That looks good, but I’m concerned this might only test Simplified Chinese fonts.

I suggest changing the test string from ‘金水’ to ‘園园’, where ‘園’ is Traditional Chinese fonts and ‘园’ is Simplified Chinese fonts.

1 Like

Thank you, @honkhongliang, for the prompt reply. I believe the team intends to use the Noto Sans TC font, which includes both Traditional and Simplified characters. However, I am rechecking this with them and will keep you posted.

Regards,
Nataliia

1 Like

Hi @Nataliia_Staff and team,

I’ve noticed that you’ve been making improvements. I’d like to share some of my observations here.

Taking Provincial Highway 61B(台61乙線) as an example, this is what its road sign looks like:

I applied different configurations to the Road Shield, and I noticed that they render differently in the app.

Configurations 1: Use the first “省道” option on Road Shield. WME link

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Use WME link click “Edit in road shield editor”.
  2. Click the first “省道” option on “Road Shield”.
  3. Enter “61乙” in the “Shield text” field.
  4. Click “Apply”
  5. The Road Shield displays “61” and “NO GLYPTH” at the top and “甲” at the bottom. The Road Shield does not display “61” at the top and “乙” at the bottom as originally intended.

Configurations 2: Use the second “省道” option on Road Shield. WME link

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Use WME link click “Edit in road shield editor”.
  2. Click the second “省道” option on “Road Shield”.
  3. Enter “61乙” in the “Shield text” field.
  4. Click “Apply”
  5. The Road Shield displays “61乙” at one line. The Road Shield does not display “61” at the top and “乙” at the bottom as originally intended.

Additionally, I have provided examples of how Road Shields are displayed in other apps for your reference.

Google Maps

Apple Maps

Also, the Road Shields for ‘市道/縣道 County and City Highways’, ‘區道/鄉道 Township and District Roads’, ‘專用公路 Exclusive Highwy’ and ‘臨時便道’ (which were added earlier this year) cannot display Traditional Chinese properly.

Would it be possible to resolve this bug at the same time?

市道/縣道 County and City Highways: 178甲縣道 WME link

(Should show ‘178甲’ on the Road Shield)


區道/鄉道 Township and District Roads: 苗8鄉道 WME link

(Should show ‘苗8’ on the Road Shield)


臨時便道: 台8線 臨37便道 WME link

(Should show ‘臨37便道’ on the Road Shield)


Hi @honkhongliang,

Thank you for adding comments. I am checking them. Could you please explain what you meant by ‘different configurations’?

Regards,
Nataliia

Hi @Nataliia_Staff ,

I apologize for any confusion caused by my lack of a detailed explanation earlier.

When I said ‘different configurations’, I meant testing various ‘Provincial Highway’ (省道) options under the ‘Road Shield’ setting on the ‘Edit in road shield editor’ page.

I have updated my original response to include the specific steps. Hopefully, this will help clarify things for you.

Hi @honkhongliang,

It took some time for me to get back to you as I noticed the original ticket has been fixed. I’ve been checking with the team to get more details. So far, I see they applied Noto Sans TC, which is supposed to support both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. My guess is that there might be a rendering or encoding issue, so I have filed a separate ticket to investigate. I will keep you posted on any updates.

Regards,
Nataliia

1 Like

Hi @Nataliia_Staff , I’m just checking in to see if there are any updates on the following issues:

  1. The Road Shield for first “省道” and “省道快速公路” option shouldn’t be hardcoded with the character ‘甲’. It should dynamically change based on the last character inputted. For example, if we input ‘61乙’, the shield should display ‘乙’ at the bottom instead of always showing ‘甲’.
  1. Road Shields for ‘市道/縣道 County and City Highways’, ‘區道/鄉道 Township and District Roads’, ‘專用公路 Exclusive Highways’, and ‘臨時便道’ (which were added earlier this year) cannot display Traditional Chinese properly.

My apologies for the delay in replying. This issue is still being addressed. I will update you when I have any new information from the team.

Regards,
Nataliia

2 Likes

Based on the suggestion from our team member @Gazcore44 , we can provide some templates for your reference to make adjustments for first “省道” (Prov. Highways) and “省道快速公路”(Prov. Expressways) option.
(To avoid confusion, these options should actually be renamed to “省道支線 Prov. Highway Spur Routes" and “ 省道快速公路支線 Prov. Expressway Spur Routes". I have already asked @lawvaban to file a report regarding this issue under Localization Bugs.)

Provincial Highway 2 Spur Routes:

Provincial Highway 2A(台2甲線):Enter “2甲” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2B(台2乙線):Enter “2乙” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2C(台2丙線):Enter “2丙” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2D(台2丁線):Enter “2丁” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2E(台2戊線):Enter “2戊” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2F(台2己線):Enter “2己” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 2G(台2庚線):Enter “2庚” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Expressways 61 Spur Routes:

Provincial Expressways 61A(台61甲線): Enter “61甲” in the “Shield text” field.

Provincial Highway 61B(台61乙線): Enter “61乙” in the “Shield text” field. ( This route could be upgraded to a ‘Provincial Expressway Spur Route’ in the future.)

1 Like

Hi @honkhongliang,

Thank you for the provided data. I have forwarded all files to the team.

I will keep you posted on any further developments.

Regards,
Nataliia

1 Like