Hi,
I would like to propose the removal of the Inkscape specific -inkscape-font-specification property. This property was added in 2007 in an attempt to allow Inkscape to handle more font faces for a given font family than allowed by CSS.[1] It relied on Pango being changed to support this.
In the intervening seven years, Pango has not changed nor does it seem likely it ever will. There doesn't appear to really be a need to expand on what CSS does already (and any SVG files that would use such a feature would not be viewable correctly in browsers). Inkscape (trunk) already supports, for example, all nine font faces of DejaVu Sans. Support for the font-variant features of CSS Fonts Module Level 3[2] would allow access to variants within a single font file which seems to satisfy the need that -inkscape-font-specification was meant to address. Font factories already have moved to put variants inside a single font file (vs. keeping them in separate files). See for example the bug (from 2004) about Adobe Caslon[3] with the long list of variants and the current OTF files from Adobe where the Small Caps, Alternative, and Swash variants are included in the regular files.[4]
At the moment, -inkscape-font-specification duplicates the information already stored in other font related properties. There is a cost in this duplication, not only in increased file size but also in code maintenance. Keeping -inkscape-font-specification matching the other font properties is a source of bugs. It is currently making proper quoting of font-family names in font-fallback lists more difficult to fix.
The actual changes needed to remove -inkscape-font-specification are straightforward and effect a few lines in about seven or eight files. No functionality would be lost as the property is completely redundant with the other font related properties.
Tav
[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/169973 [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-fonts/#font-variant-prop [3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/165521 [4] http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/caslon/buy.html