CSS21 @font-face removal

I am sure there are good reasons for removing @font-face [2]
from CSS 2.1 font capabilities. [1].

1) Do I understand correctly that in losing @font-face there is no longer a way
to specify the url for fonts, to make them available automatically if their
retrieval is needed? (formerly @font-face src:url)

I have a concern that this impacts users of minority languages more than
others.
Of course there are other solutions, but the idea that a UA coming to a
document written in a minority script could automatically retrieve the font and
display the document was a nice one.

2) Specifying the Unicode-range for a font to optimize its utilization seemed
like a good idea as well.
In fact, I rather liked the idea that by specifying a range I might preclude a
font from being used for certain characters. I think some fonts are good at one
script and provide other scripts out of necessity but are not that well done.
It would be nice to specify using a font for some characters and require other
fonts for other ranges.

I guess that is a minor optimization and we can forgo it.

I will discuss the removal of the @font-face src:url by the i18n WG.

At the same time, I wonder if it is worth considering scaling @font-face back
rather than removing it altogether, and keeping a few of the better parts?
Perhaps leaving more of the descriptive capability and leaving more of the
matching details up to the UA. (I am just guessing at the reasons for removing
@font-face.)

tex

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/fonts.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/fonts.html#font-descriptions

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Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
                         
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Received on Monday, 20 October 2003 00:59:45 UTC