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ItalicInMathEd

Why is \mathit not italic on screen?

This is notes from the post on lyx-devel regarding why \mathit doesn't show up as italic on screen in mathEd.

> > >From user's list where Andre' wrote:
> >     For the same reason why math in \emph text is shown upright. 
> >     I.e. I do not understand the whole "font attribute business" and 
> >     nobody explained it to me so far or fixed math_support.C.
> > 
> > Uhm... so is this a bug then? (should I bugzilla it?)
> 
> Rather explain the font stuff to me.

I'm flattered you think I have a clue... my experience with latex is 
all from Lyx :-)

> I.e. what font is \mathnormal? Does it depend on the surrounding text?
> What does \mathrm do? Just switch the family? Or something else, too?
> Same for \mathsc, \matit, \mathbf etc?

Googling, I found this:   "Math font attributes"
        http://www.latex-project.org/guides/fntguide/node13.html

The link seems highly relevant to your question above, but I'll have to 
read it properly later tonight and think some more. Then I'll see if I can 
come up with something that makes sense...

/Christian

To which Andre replied:

Good shot.

This already indicates that mathed's logic 

        fontinfo fontinfos[] = {
                // math fonts
                {"mathnormal",    inh_family, LyXFont::MEDIUM_SERIES,
                                                                                LyXFont::UP_SHAPE, LColor::math},
    [...]

is broken.

mathnormal should have LyXFont::ITALIC_SHAPE...

Maybe that's already the root of the evil.

Care to submit a patch?

Andre' *duck and run*