[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 143013] Separate italic from oblique font family variants

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143013

--- Comment #6 from Mike Kaganski <mikekaganski at hotmail.com> ---
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #5)
> > The two - italic vs oblique - are just internal technical method of creating
> > a slanted variant of the font, which will be the only one for a given font.
> 
> Absolutely not. Italic variants of font families are a respectable
> typographic tradition going back centuries and influenced by handwritten
> forms. Oblique / "mechanically" slanted font family variants are hacks. Some
> consider them useful hacks, others consider them unsightly hacks, but hacks
> nonetheless.

This is absolutely unrelated to LibreOffice. LO is an office suite, which goal
is *not* to be some educational tool to teach about some ancient roots of some
contemporary things. It absolutely doesn't matter what font designers think;
often it even doesn't matter what cultures consider correct - what is important
that there is a use of slanted variant of the same font as used normally -
e.g., some kinds of emphasis; and office suites provide the means for *applying
this kind of slanted font not as a separate font*, but as a *formatting*
option. And for the formatting option, it doesn't matter if the slant comes
from font or is faked; it doesn't matter if the slant in font is italics or
oblique; it might only matter for the user when one decides which fonts to use
or not use, but not for the software when offering this *formatting* option.

To emphasize: *everything* you are talking about is ignoring that in *office
suite*, slant is *not* a separate font variant which should be a separate item
in the font list, but just a formatting option applied to the text written in
this font. And this point of view is *normal* and *productive*, regardless what
people who know the roots think.

I can tell you many things that people confuse - in zoology; in heating
systems; in medicine... but if I started require people to know those details
that *don't* affect their lives, their work, and that don't make their point of
interest - I'd be stupid. No, people do *not* need the distinction forced on
them, which only matters for several dozens of specialists in this world. For
those specialists, tdf#35538 would be a required pre-requisite for enabling
more detailed font handling in LO - and likely no amount of care would be
enough to make LO adequate for those people. But their needs are not what
office suites are for.

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