[css3-writing-modes] note about disabling font-variant

After the requirement to disable full-width variants was removed, in it's
place this note was added:

http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-writing-modes/#text-combine-fullwidth

# Full-width glyph variations can also be chosen via the font-variant
# property or @font-face descriptor [CSS3-FONTS]. However since such
# variations do not affect the glyph shape in contemporary fonts,
# there is no explicit interaction with this feature currently. A
# future revision of this specification may require ignoring such
# declarations within the combined text if common usage makes such
# behavior desirable. 

I strongly object to this wording.  Who is this note addressed to and
what purpose does it serve?  You're conjecturing about possible future
WG decisions and as such I don't think that has any place in a spec.
It's just noise to those working on implementations and distracting to
authors trying to understand the 'text-combine-horizontal' property.

Either omit this note or replace it with one directed at authors:

  Properties that affect glyph selection, such as the
  'font-variant' and 'font-feature-settings' properties defined
  in [CSS3-FONTS], can potentially affect the selection of
  variants for digits or alphabetic characters included in
  <em>tatechuyoko</em> text runs. Authors are advised to use
  these properties with care when 'text-combine-horizontal' is
  also used.

That's more informative and serves a purpose I think.

Regards,

John Daggett

Received on Friday, 20 September 2013 02:11:30 UTC