Re: bolder/lighter defintion

> Anyway, you're criticizing my table for providing inadequate visual
> distinction, but haven't provided an example where that's the case.
> Can you please provide such an example?

It's not that it's inadequate but that it's inconsistent, you'll hit
in-between weights in some cases but not in others.  

Your table:

 | Inherited value   bolder  lighter
 | 100               400     100
 | 200               400     100
 | 300               500     100
 | 400               600     200
 | 500               700     300
 | 600               800     400
 | 700               900     500
 | 800               900     600
 | 900               900     700

For the vast majority of fonts that only have normal/bold weights "400
bolder" would map to the bold (700) face. But in some cases, where a
semi-bold (600) face existed, you'd end up with a potentially subtle
difference.  Likewise in the case of "700 lighter", most of the time
it would hit 400 but in some cases if a family had a medium weight it
would hit that (e.g. Helvetica Neue on 10.6).

Including in-between weights doesn't "increase precision", it
increases imprecision because the results will vary more across OS
environments.  Put another way "400 bolder" should always map to 700
because that's what authors who are generally fuzzy on the difference
between bold and bolder expect.

>> It's unfortunate that you're bringing this up now, a year after this
> 
> It's unfortunate that I'm only now triaging the CSS2.1 issues list, yes.

The wording is in the CSS3 spec and the definition of bolder/lighter is
by no means a new issue.  The CSS 2.1 issue is more "do we want to
move the CSS3 wording into the 2.1 spec" rather than "do we want to
debate bolder/lighter definition yet again"

>> was discussed and agreed upon at the March 2009 F2F.
> 
> There was no resolution on font-weight at that F2F:
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2009Mar/0070.html

There was general agreement at the time that this proposal made sense
and that I should write it up as such.  The record reflects that, as
did the working draft updated in June of last year.

Received on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 09:32:56 UTC