Re: [css-fonts] font-weight-adjust

Florian Rivoal wrote:

> If I am understanding you correctly, the currently defined mechanism
> is theoretically sufficient to narrow down to a single font (including
> weight), and would therefore allow us to solve the problem I raised,
> BUT the reality of implementations mean that in practice it would not
> actually work,  and near term prospects about that improving are slim.

Um, you were asking a theoretical question about TrueType collections,
which are not supported as a webfont format currently. I don't think
there's a problem that the use of a particular font packaging format will
necessarily solve.

> So just to clarify:
>
> * Do you agree what allowing authors to pair fonts based on
> numerically different but visually similar font weights is a desirable
> thing?
>
> * Do you think the currently-specified-but-not-implemented solution
> based on fragment identifiers will solve the problem?
>
> * If yes, what are the road blocks to getting it implemented?
>
> * If no, do you think something like font-weigth-adjust has a better
> chance, and if not, any idea about what would?

Your original message was about matching fallback fonts. I think your
proposed solution is a poor way to solve *that* problem. Decisions about
which font to use for a particular language are much subtler than simply
being a decision about matching font weights. Type designers spend a lot of
time thinking about these sorts of problems when designing typefaces that
are complementary across scripts. Using fonts that are explicitly
*designed* to complement each other across script/language is a better
solution.

Type is typically used in some form of hierarchy within a page. For
example, headings using a "branded" display face, body text using a
commonly available platform font. Sites that display content in different
languages need to make font choices per language to maintain a consistent
typographic voice across locales. Universal fontlists are a poor way of
addressing that.

In short, I don't think your 'font-weight-adjust' proposal is a good or
needed solution.

Cheers,

John Daggett