Re: [css3-fonts] Names of 'font-variant-*' properties and relationships to OT features

Christoph Päper wrote:

> > I really hate to suggest (again) a major overhaul of this module,
> > …, but I firmly believe the structure is not well enough thought
> > out – or systematic enough – for authors and real usecases.
> 
> I’d like to see any kind of confirmation that my remarks have been
> taken into account, preferably been discussed by the WG. There’s
> nothing in the tracker, bugzilla, the mailing list or the minutes.
> This should be done before the module goes to Last Call.

I think you must be referring to your previous post requesting a redesign
of the font-variant-xxx properties [1].  I don't see that it's a good fit
with the underlying font features we're trying to support.  Specifically,
these are designed to enable substitution and positioning features defined
within font data by type designers.  These are widely supported and there's
interest among the implementors in the group to support these.

Regarding your proposal to tie each feature to a specific set of
characters, while many of these features generally apply to a limited
range of characters, type designers often include other characters in
the set of characters affected by a given feature for better visual
representation.  For example, the small-caps feature may affect
surrounding punctuation, the type designer may design alternate
punctuation just for small-cap text runs.  The small-caps feature
behaves as a type designer thinks it should for their design, CSS is
not dictating what it should and shouldn't be for all cases.

I would also caution that this is a simply a discussion list.  If there's
a lot of interest in your post, then it's something the WG would take into
consideration.  There's no obligation for the WG to discuss every single post
on this list, as you can imagine that would be an impossible task.

Regards,

John Daggett

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/0423.html

Received on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 02:38:22 UTC