More lay description for "Use old style figures"?

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 08:34:50AM +0200, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> Am Montag, den 13.07.2020, 15:55 -0400 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:
> > On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 06:28:56PM +0200, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> > > Am Samstag, den 11.07.2020, 22:42 -0400 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:
> > > > It would be nice to describe the feature in a way that LyX users
> > > > who
> > > > don't know anything about "old style figures" can immediately
> > > > realize
> > > > that they don't need to check those boxes or search for what they
> > > > do.
> > > > The tooltip did not help me. It says "Use old style instead of
> > > > lining
> > > > figures".
> > 
> > The argument that the term "is also what LibreOffice, Scribus,
> > QuarkXPress, InDesign, and Word uses, and it's the term used in the
> > OpenType specification" is a convincing one to me. I tested
> > LibreOffice
> > but could not find where in the dialogs it is mentioned. I thought I
> > would find it in Format > Character, but did not.
> 
> Format > Character > Functions ...
> 
> Note that it is only listed there if the selected font provides old
> style figures.
> 
> In that case, you can also select it directly by appending ":onum" to
> the font name, e.g. "Noto Serif:onum"

Thanks, I see it now.

> > > Would this help?
> > > 
> > > "Use numerals with ascenders and descenders (Old Style Figures)
> > > that fit more elegantly in lower-case text rather than numerals
> > > with
> > > constant upper-case height (Lining Figures)"
> > 
> > Not that much. As someone who doesn't know much about fonts, I really
> > don't know from that description whether I should use the feature or
> > invest the time to learn more about it. It helps a bit because it has
> > the word "numerals" so at least I know we're talking about numerals,
> > rather than "figures" which I associate with graphics.
> > 
> > It would be nice to have a term that users with more knowledge than I
> > of
> > fonts recognize but that users like me can at least realize they
> > probably don't have to spend time figuring out what the feature does.
> > Enrico's suggestion of "Use antique numerals" does that, and so does
> > "Use medieval-style numerals". Perhaps we can add one of those to the
> > tooltip? e.g., <<Also known as 'antique numerals', [insert your
> > technical description]>>.
> 
> As you wish, but I don't think this will help many people. I really
> doubt "antique numerals" and "medieval-style numerals" is so much more
> known than "old style figures". I'd rather describe the feature.

Fair enough. I'm not confident enough to claim that others would
interpet "figure" in the same way that I did. And a Google search of
term is easy enough. Let's leave things as is.

> > I guess the reason I was confused is that now in 2.4 we present three
> > text boxes with "Use old style figures" instead of one since we allow
> > customization for each font. This is a nice feature but it makes me
> > think the option must be important since there are three text boxes
> > for it. 
> 
> IMHO it is important, since I use old style figures wherever I can.
> They are simply more suitable for numbers in running text.

Good to know. I would like to learn more about this and typography some
day.

> > But Googling for "old style figures" and figuring out that I
> > don't need the feature only takes a minute, and the user will
> > probably
> > remember that the next time; so it is not a big deal. Perhaps in the
> > future if we add more customization (e.g., more features that can be
> > customized by font) we can redesign the UI a bit to optimize the
> > dialog
> > for the average user but at the same time allow for more advanced
> > customization.  Perhaps a checkbox "customize separately by font"? 
> 
> Now who is the "average user"? Actually I find it quite annoying in
> LibreOffice that this important font feature is so much hidden that it
> took me long to find out it is actually supported. Old style figures is
> a core feature of font selection.
> 
> > But I am biased towards my own usage of LyX. Perhaps there are more
> > users than I think that use one of the three (scale, options, "use
> > old style figures") per font.
> > 
> > Thanks to everyone for the replies. I'm fine with leaving it as it
> > is. I understand now that we should not rename the universally-used
> > term for the option. I suppose the only thing we could consider is to
> > add something like "antique numerals" in the tooltip.
> 
> As said, I think it does not help much. And it does not help at all in
> localizations other than English, where people also might not be
> familiar with the respective term (e.g., "Mediävalziffern" in German).
> 
> If we could rely on the tooltip font, we could add example figures, but
> this requires osf to be provided in the font used for the tooltip.

Good points.

Thanks for the discussion,

Scott
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