[Fontconfig] A question about font styles

[Ambrose Li]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:26:58PM -0500, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > 	4)	Attempt to merge face name and style/weight values
> > 		(so a face name of 'black' and a style of 'italic' would
> > 		yield a black italic font).
> > 
> > 4) seems likely to be fragile and cause weird effects when faced with 
> > unusual fonts.  of 1) and 2), I suggest that 1) is a better choice as your 
> > abstractions may never capture all of the possible variations (outline 
> > anyone?) present in the 'face name'.  So, that leaves 3).  I think it's a 
> > poor choice as it makes the face_name="italic", weight="bold" case very 
> > confusing, and leaves us with an imperative spec rather than a declarative 
> > one.
> 
> Well, I still haven't changed my opinion away from:
> 
>  5) Don't add "face name", do whatever munging on fontconfig output
>     is necessary to create artificial family names.

Actually I am not sure what the difference between (4) and (5) really is.

Option (4) tries to come up with a combined font name that describes
all its attributes. Then use this artificial font name (which includes
the original attributes) to do font selection.

Option (5) tries to subtract things from the face name until it comes
up with a probable family name, and if that fails do further munging.
We then create artificial attributes from any leftover from the original
name. Then we use the artificial family name, together with the original
plus artificial attributes, to do font selection.

Is the above understanding correct? If it is, (5) sounds even more
fragile than (4); if not, I don't understand how the two differ...

Regards,
Ambrose