PGLDing Dingbats aren't showing correctly.

[oshaboy]

Describe the bug
PGLDings Dingbats aren't showing correctly.
Apparently PKHex has the PGLDings font file but it still doesn't replace properly.

To Reproduce
Load any Gen 4-7 save file with a pokémon with a nickname with a dingbat and try to display it in PKHex

Expected behavior
The dingbat should show.

Screenshots

[kwsch]

PKHeX uses Gen6's font file from PGL, and nothing more.

Gen4 dingbats are aliased to the codepoints that Gen5 uses, to ensure that 4<->5 transfer of each char works.

PKHeX/PKHeX.Core/PKM/Strings/StringConverter4Util.cs

Lines 139 to 141 in bf31d91

	'#', '=', '&', '~', ':', ';', '⑯', '⑰', '⑱', '⑲', '⑳', '⑴', '⑵', '⑶', '⑷', '⑸', // 1C0-1CF
	'@', '⑹', '%', '⑺', '⑻', '⑼', '⑽', '⑾', '⑿', '⒀', '⒁', '⒂', '⒃', '⒄', ' ', '⒅', // 1D0-1DF
	'⒆', '⒇', '⒈', '⒉', '⒊', '⒋', '⒌', '⒍', '°', '_', '＿', '⒎', '⒏', // 1E0-1EC*

PKHeX/PKHeX.WinForms/Subforms/PKM Editors/Text.cs

Lines 236 to 244 in bf31d91

	private static ReadOnlySpan<ushort> SpecialCharsGen5 =>
	[
	0x2460, // Full Neutral (Happy in Gen7)
	0x2461, // Full Happy (Angry in Gen7)
	0x2462, // Full Sad
	0x2463, // Full Angry (Neutral in Gen7)
	0x2464, // Full Right-up arrow
	0x2465, // Full Right-down arrow
	0x2466, // Full Zz

Gen5 -> Gen6 transfers these glyphs out of the private use section (0x2460-0x2487) by adding 0xE081 to their de-shifted number.

PKHeX/PKHeX.Core/PKM/Strings/StringConverter345.cs

Lines 140 to 146 in bf31d91

	public static void TransferGlyphs56(Span<char> input)
	{
	for (int i = 0; i < input.Length; i += 2)
	{
	var c = input[i];
	if (IsPrivateUseChar(c))
	input[i] = (char)GetMigratedPrivateChar(c);

Gen6 -> Gen7 does not remap anything, but the font used by Gen7 mistakenly has 3 of the faces swapped, so they will appear differently when transferred between games.

PKHeX/PKHeX.WinForms/Subforms/PKM Editors/Text.cs

Lines 275 to 280 in bf31d91

	private static ReadOnlySpan<ushort> SpecialCharsGen67 =>
	[
	0xE081, // Full Neutral (Happy in Gen7)
	0xE082, // Full Happy (Angry in Gen7)
	0xE083, // Full Sad
	0xE084, // Full Angry (Neutral in Gen7)

Gen7 -> Gen8 changes all to spaces (full-width or half-width depending on which).

PKHeX/PKHeX.Core/PKM/Strings/StringConverter8.cs

Lines 191 to 199 in bf31d91

	private static ReadOnlySpan<char> Glyphs78 =>
	[
	'　', // '\uE081' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE082' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE083' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE084' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE085' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE086' -> '\u3000'
	'　', // '\uE087' -> '\u3000'

Similar to Gen1's handling, PKHeX ensures the chars transfer correctly, and at least have something to render. Here's Gen1/2's for Pk/Mn and the various ligatures for other languages:

PKHeX/PKHeX.Core/PKM/Strings/StringConverter2.cs

Lines 179 to 211 in bf31d91

	private const char LPK = StringConverter1.LPK; // Pk
	private const char LMN = StringConverter1.LMN; // Mn
	private const char MNY = StringConverter1.MNY; // Yen
	private const char LPO = StringConverter1.LPO; // Po
	private const char LKE = StringConverter1.LKE; // Ke
	private const char LEA = StringConverter1.LEA; // é for Box/Mail
	private const char DOT = StringConverter1.DOT; // . for MR.MIME (U+2024, not U+002E)
	private const char SPF = StringConverter1.SPF; // Full-width space (U+3000)
	private const char SPH = StringConverter1.SPH; // Half-width space
	private const char RET = LineBreak; // Line break for Mail
	private const char LAP = '’'; // Apostrophe
	// 'd 'l 'm 'r 's 't 'v
	// All are apostrophe-before.
	private const string LigatureENG = "dlmrstv";
	// c' d' j' l' m' n' p' s' 's t' u' y'
	// All are apostrophe-after besides index 8 ('s)
	private const string LigatureFRE = "cdjlmnpsstuy";
	private const char LI0 = '０'; // 'd
	private const char LI1 = '１'; // 'l
	private const char LI2 = '２'; // 'm
	private const char LI3 = '３'; // 'r
	private const char LI4 = '４'; // 's
	private const char LI5 = '５'; // 't
	private const char LI6 = '６'; // 'v
	private const char LI7 = '７';
	private const char LI8 = '８';
	private const char LI9 = '９';
	private const char LIA = 'Ａ';
	private const char LIB = 'Ｂ';

Circling back to your issue, it hasn't been worthwhile for PKHeX to juggle multiple different font instances depending on which generation/context is active, as most people will never ever use the dingbats. PKHeX originally started as a Gen6 editor, hence only serving the Gen6 font file in the GUI.

Copypasting out of a GUI will copy the codepoint chars, so the source (PKHeX) and destination (Showdown) need to be using the same font/ranges. Looking at your proposed revisions to psim, it appears you're not handling the Gen4/5 codepoint ranges (0x2460+), only the Gen6/7:
https://github.com/smogon/pokemon-showdown-client/pull/2402/files/cc5003cc33ccd38b44f478bf90fc4ac91068c194..88d977cee986078715cb0f5abb400ee465326709#diff-2bc643228516aff758799b14e85024616d114707251e0f4ae168ba2c1dbfb36bR2026-R2042

[oshaboy]

That font file has both the Gen 5 dingbats and the Gen 6-7 dingbats so both should work

[kwsch]

That font file has both the Gen 5 dingbats and the Gen 6-7 dingbats so both should work

No, the PGLDings*.ttf only contains the codepoints for Gen6, not the 0x2460 private use range used by Gen5.

[oshaboy]

The font that I am using for showdown has both.

[kwsch]

tagging @abcboy101 re: ttf file on Bulbapedia origins, and re-useability

PKHeX's ttf was directly from PGL without modifications; not sure if Bulbapedia's is a modified file, or if it was a late-dumped file where GameFreak revised it (to duplicate the range to include Gen5) after PKHeX had captured it.

Dunno if PKHeX's handling of PBR/Batrev is deficient, as per the discussion: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Template_talk:Ding for both half & full being (㌀㌁㌂㌃㌄㌅㌆) -- another remapping not handled by StringConverter4GC?

[abcboy101]

The Bulbapedia font file is indeed modified to include mappings for the Gen5 codepoints. It doesn't have the Gen4 codepoints primarily because the DS games didn't use Unicode and I hadn't researched the Wii games yet at the time. The Unicode codepoints PBR/Ranch use when transcoding are described in full on this page, but they differ slightly from each other.

I initially wanted to support the Gen 5 versions since they're more readable than private-use characters, but if I made the same decision today, I probably wouldn't allow the alternate representations knowing that PBR/Ranch also had different mappings.