Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-fonts] avoid fallback from oblique to italic (#9389)

@drott Revisiting this, as it dropped off my radar, but i was reminded of it by https://github.com/w3c/hlreq/issues/36

> I am a bit confused as to what actual case we are trying to address

I believe that this issue was broken out of the original to address what happens when a left-leaning oblique font is not available on the user's system, but there _is_ a right-leaning italic font on the system.  Currently, browsers fall back to an italic font, rather than actually applying the oblique transform requested by the content author.

But italics and oblique are _not_ synonymous.  In some writing systems (such as Cyrillic) there is a marked and systematic difference in glyph shapes - much more so than in English text.

In fact, the test at https://github.com/w3c/glyph_character_tests/issues/38 shows that it's currently not possible to apply oblique to Cyrillic text at all (even right leaning) without turning the glyphs into italic forms - which is not what you want if you're actually trying to apply oblique rather than italicisation.  The assumption that 'if you used an oblique value you're actually fine with italics' doesn't in fact hold.

> With this proposed resolution, I don't think we're getting closer to enabling left-leaning slant, or are we and I missing something?

Well, while the current behaviour applies then oblique settings just don't work at all if there's an italic font available  (as is the case for many Arabic and Hebrew fonts). That then pretty much stymies you if you are trying to get your text to lean to the left.

I agree that ideally the content author would apply a webfont or point to a system font with the correct behaviour, but that's not always possible (if it were, there'd be no need to have font-style:oblique).  

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Received on Friday, 11 October 2024 15:10:17 UTC