file issue with browsers: "font-style: italic; currently doesn't work in any major browser"

[thundernixon]

Jason Pamental wrote about the currently-inconsistent implementation of font-style in browsers:

if you specify ‘font-style: italic’ that should tell the browser to render the font with the Italic axis set to 1 instead of 0. The trouble is, it doesn’t actually work. At least not as you might expect.

https://mailchi.mp/444e7a454775/web-typography-news-20-contextual-stylistics-and-other-fake-band-names

He offers a CodePen demo to show the problem (see in Safari vs Chrome vs Firefox):

https://codepen.io/jpamental/pen/rEKQZq?editors=1100

However, font-style: italic doesn't seem to work for an early version of Recursive, at all (even though font-variation-settings does work as expected).
https://codepen.io/thundernixon/pen/ormaav

Safari - italic almost does what it should, whether or not font-style: oblique 0deg 20deg; is included in the @font-face declaration.:

...but it is skewed, rather than using the proper slnt axis. This can be seen most easily in the distortion of the letter O.

Chrome & Firefox – no result from italic or oblique:

[thundernixon]

I split the font differently and did some further tests:

rsms/inter#175

Summary: I changed from a Slant axis to an Italic axis, so "forward slanting" can be connected to a positive number (Italic must go from 0 to 1). I then created a Cursive (CRSV) axis to allow control over true-italic alternates. This also has problems in each main browser, though the problems are slightly different.

[thundernixon]

Also, look at http://localhost:3002/var-test.html in Inter project for some good specifics to include in bug reports.

[arrowtype]

I did this. Details at http://arrowtype.github.io/vf-slnt-test