[Fontconfig] Why is the default weight FC_WEIGHT_MEDIUM?

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On 13-10-25 09:01 AM, Akira TAGOH wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> That sounds reasonable to me so that the normal weight is also default in CSS.

SGTM too.


> Does anyone else have any objection about this change? one concern is
> if there are anyone who are relying on current behavior, this change
> will breaks it despite you get a fix.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 12:42 AM, John Flatness <john at zerocrates.org> wrote:
>> I was recently trying to run down a quirk in font selection, and stumbled
>> upon Fontconfig's pattern defaults. In particular, the one that was causing
>> my issue and surprise was the default for weight, which is defined as
>> FC_WEIGHT_MEDIUM, or 100.
>>
>> This default seems to have been the same from the initial commit, and that
>> time there were only defined constants for light (then defined as zero),
>> medium, demi-bold, bold, and black weights.
>>
>> By now, should the default weight not be FC_WEIGHT_NORMAL or
>> FC_WEIGHT_REGULAR, both of which are defined as 80? The specific context I
>> noticed this in was a font family that ships both regular and medium
>> weights, and without additional specification, fontconfig selects the
>> surprisingly-heavy medium weight.
>>
>> I'm aware I can provide my own configuration to handle my specific case, but
>> I'm surprised that the default here is actually heavier than the "regular"
>> and "normal" weight. I imagine there's some consideration here that I'm
>> simply not aware of, but I can't think of what that might be.
>>
>> --
>> John Flatness
>>
>> (P.S.: I tried to send this message earlier, and it seemed to get eaten
>> somewhere along the line. Apologies if this is a duplicate for anyone.)
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fontconfig mailing list
>> Fontconfig at lists.freedesktop.org
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> 
> 
> 

-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/