[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 129219] Further refinement of OpenType/Graphite Font features in the “Character” dialogue

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129219

--- Comment #13 from V Stuart Foote <vstuart.foote@utsa.edu> ---
The Character dialog 'Font effects' vs font OT/Graphite smart font attributes
exposed in the 'Features...' dialog are completely different implementations.

The font effects are available to essentially any font regardless of the font
designers intent. In GUI they are presented in a dialog tab panel positioned in
a consistent fashion for all instances.  

There is no linkage to font provided metrics and variants (eg.
underline/strikethrough/overline placement, italic/bold variants, sub
script/super script position, etc.) all facets of the typography is handled by
VCL processing of font metrics while it is rendered to canvas.

And because they are not linked to smart font features or hinting provided by
the font the GUI and behavior of 'Font Effects' tab is consistent, for better
or worse.

Implementation of Graphite font feature support, and with HarfBuzz its reuse
for OpenType, supplements the fixed set of VCL font effects per font. There is
no linkage of the smart font features, so they can not interact with the fixed
set of effects without major refactoring.

As implemented, the smart font 'Features...' dialog is appropriate in the GUI.
Each font exposes its own set of smart font features--Graphite, or
OpenType--and that set of features is exposed per font in the dialog via the
'Font' tab. Where the multiple dialogs are available for the three text
categories (Western, Asian, and Complex). And, OpenType support actually
remains lacking--requiring additional HarfBuzz support.

Any case integrating the two, incorporating smart font features into the Font
effects, is not a trivial task--and because so few fonts support more than a
couple of smart font features (Graphite or OpenType) a dedicated tab for each
is not warranted. Even as additional changes to HarfBuzz expose more of the
smart font features, absent major refactoring of font effects, the best
handling will remain a separate dialog populated per font with the smart font
features it supports available to select. 

On reconsideration, IMHO Tomaž, got this exactly right [1][2] and changes to
GUI should be a => WF 

[1] https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/c/55892/
[2] https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/c/55894/

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