Re: [css3-fonts] @font-face matching and font-style descriptor

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 5:32 PM, John Hudson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sergey Malkin wrote:
>
>> This is what bothers me. This answer means simulated styles will never be
>> used even if just single font is defined (like MyFont1 above). I do not
>> think this is what Web developers would expect. This is different from
>> people's experience with fonts installed locally...
>
> If I understand you correctly, I think I would want to nuance this by saying
> 'different from people's experience with fonts installed locally in some
> applications'. Professional design apps such as Adobe's do not employ
> simulated styles except when explicitly activated by the user. In such apps,
> the absence of an Italic font means no italic, not a simulated italic, and
> in my opinion as a typographer that is vastly preferable to what apps like
> Word do, mutilating typefaces in numerous ways with simulated styles, even
> for single fonts that were never meant to be italic'd or bold'd.

In my opinion as a simple web author, though, the exact opposite is
true.  ^_^  I'd much rather have a simulated font if there's no
appropriate variant specified, rather than just not matching at all
and falling back.

For example, check out http://www.xanthir.com/:wih in Firefox and
Chrome.  The former will simulate font-variant:small-caps for my
headings, which looks fine.  The latter won't, so the headings
fallback to the platform serif.

I'd prefer either simulation happening automatically, or at the very
least a switch saying that it's okay to simulate some/all properties
that aren't otherwise matched by an explicit declaration.

Basically, I'm not at all sympathetic to a typographer/font developer
saying "I don't want my font used at all if it's used in a way I can't
control the display of", which I believe is essentially the argument
of the no-simulation camp.  (Correct me if there is a more nuanced
position I should be aware of.)

~TJ