Re: [css3-fonts] Comments on @font-face: local(...)

Thomas Phinney wrote:

> I am of course a broken record on this issue, but...
> 
> Why deal with locale-based differences in font family and style names,
> but not platform-based differences?
> 
> I am still perturbed that a font is family = "Glurbish Light" and
> style = "Bold" in Windows GDI but family = "Glurbish" and style =
> "Semibold" on Mac OS X, and I think it's a problem. It can be solved
> either partially or completely (depending on how ambitious and complex
> one wants to be) if there's a spec for what user agents are supposed
> to do across platforms.

I'm not sure but I think you're pointing out two distinct problems here.
The first is that the TrueType/OpenType spec defined family names in an
inconsistent manner across platforms, which can lead to different
groupings across platforms.  The second problem (I think) concerns how
weight mappings are defined across platforms.

I completely agree that the problem of how to group families across
platforms needs to be resolved in a way that makes font usage consistent
across platforms but I should point out that it's not really a problem
that affects most web usage, since outside the websafe font gamut
platform font sets are distinct, there's little crossover.  Downloadable
fonts are grouped based on the descriptors in @font-face rules so they
are completely independent of this mess, data in the 'name' table has no
effect on family groupings, independent of platform.

It would be really helpful to hear how you think these issues should be
resolved.

Cheers,

John Daggett
Mozilla Japan

Received on Friday, 21 August 2009 06:14:42 UTC