The VERSION.jar files no longer contains all font files, the only remaining files are accented.png, ascii.png, ascii_sga.png, asciillager.png, and nonlatin_european.png. The assets that are included in the .jar file do not change based on the language you have set in either the launcher or the game. This severely hinders the ability to make custom non-English fonts to pack makers.
Attachments
Comments 7
REPORT:
These assets are now downloaded by the launcher, like sounds and translations, allowing Mojang to update them separately from the game itself; resource packs can still overwrite them if the correct path is used (which you can see in <your minecraft folder>/assets/indexes/<index version>.json). This is no-doubt a deliberate choice by Mojang and as such intended.
COMMENT:
You are not supposed to, no. That field is supposed to be set by users that aren't mod or Mojang. The tracker software (JIRA) doesn't work properly in that regard, but it's not something Mojang can fix, as it's not their software. Please do not modify it.
As Dhranios mentioned, font files are no longer included in the jar file but rather in the external assets. However, that doesn't mean that resource packs can't change them. They now work similarly to sound and music files, which aren't directly included in the jar file either but can still be replaced by resource packs.
The font files have become much larger (because many more characters have been added) and thus it doesn't make much sense to keep them in the .jar file anymore. Them now being external assets also means that they can be updated outside of the update cycle, which means that Minecraft can follow the unifont updates much more closely now (the old version was years out of date I believe)
Somewhat irrelevant question to the bug report:
Am I even supposed to be able to modify the category of the bug report? The option appears for it for a small portion of a second which allowed me time to change the category, but it does not allow me time to choose a proper category.