Italic button not working for the VF if there is no ital axis

[kosbarts]

In CommissionerVF version 1.000 the I(talic) button does not work since there is not ital axis present. Also the Italic Instances do not show up in the list (tested on MacOS). (italic button is deactivated)

FontBook also does not recognise the italic instances. They appear with the default name (Thin).

Two solutions:

a) Change the slnt axis to become ital axis so the user can only switch between upright and italic (0 to 1)

b) Keep the slnt axis and add an ital axis as well.

@davelab6 what do you think?

[davelab6]

This is a challenge. I think (a) may be best in this case, but it hard to be sure

@thundernixon what's the best place to review your thoughts on this t

[arrowtype]

@davelab6 I should note down my final thoughts in a single, more-concise place.

Here are my general notes, which talk about theories around different purposes for slnt & vital axes: https://github.com/arrowtype/recursive/tree/master/docs/03-slnt_ital-axis-rename-tests

Here’s the PR in which I updated Recursive’s axes: https://github.com/arrowtype/recursive/pull/330

In summary:

• ital is more intuitive, and more for “secondary emphasis” in typography. Intermediate values available in design apps & in CSS via font-variation-settings.
• slnt is less intuitive, and more for layout purposes. A greater number of values on the axis scale will probably suggest to users that intermediate values are possible, and enables intermediates to be specified with CSS font-style: oblique XXdeg

I think that most fonts should use ital, unless they specifically want users to use intermediate values. Because Commissioner has no "true italic" letterforms, that suggests that maybe slnt is the correct choice here.

Slant currently is better supported by browsers, but less well supported in macOS, as @kosbarts's screenshots show. This may be solvable in the STAT table, but I don't currently understand this very well – as far as I know, macOS probably needs an update to support this properly, but I assume they will fix this soonish.

[kosbarts]

Thanks both for the feedback.

@arrowtype I agree with you that Commissioners design indicates that slnt is the correct axis to use. I have tried my best to make a good STAT table and testing in Samsa indicates that it works fine now both in building style names as well as style linking.

@davelab6 I think that option (a) will perform better in current macOS but in a way it does change the semantics of the font.

I would opt for either a) adding the ital axis or b) keeping everything as is and just wait for macOS to update its support.