1.9 vs Beta 2.22 - Which is correct?

[JimRac]

I'm seeing differences in how v1.9 and beta 2.22 handle font styles.

The screenshots below show how each handles the IBM Plex Mono font, which has many variations. It is freely available from IBM on github

Here's how 1.9 handles IBM Plex Mono's various styles.

v1.9.png (37.42 KiB) Viewed 537 times

Here's what beta 2.22 does.

v2.22.png (34.17 KiB) Viewed 537 times

FWIW, MS Word handles it the same way as 1.9.

Is this an issue with the beta? Or is it a change in how Win Scriv will handle font styles? Or is problem with the font?

Best,
Jim

[wordjoy]

Word as a long history that has to lead it to have old bad habits on fonts.
I know I was the Customer Support Font Guru back in the 1990s and was flown to various Microsoft support sites to train font management.
Word tends to take a typeface and synthesize at least Bold Underline, italic. Even if the typeface does not define it.
Word also tends to treat typeface files, as individual fonts, so Arial and Arial Light are related. Word will only show you what Arial has defined in THAT FILE plus it created weights. Apps like Adobe will utilize the weights built-in the full font family installed.

The new way Scrivner is doing it is the up-to-date way to manage typeface variations.

[JimRac]

Thanks for the feedback, Wordjoy.

It makes sense, except now that I'm trying it out, beta 22 doesn't seem to be handling this new method consistently.

I'm using the IBM Plex Mono font throughout a document, with Regular style.

I select a paragraph, and use the style selector to walk through the various styles available, and beta 22 applies them to the paragraph as expected.

Until, that is, I arrive at Tex...lic (Text Italics). When I select Tex...lic, the style jumps back to Medium. If I select Tex...lic again, then the paragraph changes to Tex...lic .

If I continue selecting the remaining styles below Tex...lic, beta 22 sometimes applies them and sometimes reverts back to Medium or Regular.

Is this expected behavior?

Best,
Jim

[tiho_d]

Please note that it is not "Text ..." but "*Extra* … Italic", which could be "Extra Light Italic", "Extra Medium Italic" etc.. Unfortunately for some fonts the variations could be quite long, but we should do something to improve the combo box text readability. We might try adding tooltips to each item, which might help readability for longer names.

Also have in mind that previously the styles were hardcoded, and would always stay the same even though some fonts do not provide some of the styles. The new approach is dynamic and provides the styles specific to the selected font, so you will notice that the font style sets differ for the different font faces.

[JimRac]

Tiho,

Thanks for the reply.

Were you able to reproduce the issue I saw? When I select Tex...lic in the selector, the style jumps back to Medium in the selector, etc. The Style selector was not respecting my choice the first time, I had to make the selection twice before it 'took'.

Best,
Jim

[JimRac]

Tiho,

Thanks for the reply.

Were you able to reproduce the issue I saw? When I select Tex...lic in the selector, the style jumps back to Medium in the selector, etc. The Style selector was not respecting my choice the first time, I had to make the selection twice before it 'took'.

Best,
Jim

By the way, I also see this issue in beta 23.

[JimRac]

@RobertoCrissini observed similar behavior in another thread, with a different font.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=288224#p288224