Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.2.3)
Installed from:    Slackware Packages
Compiler:          gcc (GCC) 3.3.4 Stock Slackware 10.0 compiler
OS:                Linux

The KDE font chosser seems to be restricted to the four common font variants (normal, italic, bold, bold italic). However, some commonly available fonts offer different variants, notably the "condensed" variant.

This variant is very useful for lists that shall not take too much screen space, such as the KMail list of folders. The PostScript font set includes such variants, so most computer systems have them (be they Helvetica Narrow, Arial Narrow or the GPL'd Nimbus Sans L Condensed). While some vendors have chosen to ship their condensed version under a different name to simplify their font choosers, Nimbus Sans L, which is installed on most Linux systems as part of the Ghostscript package, does not. Eight variants are available, only four of which can be selected under KDE.

The problem can be worked around using fontconfig's config files, basically creating a new font name for the four condensed variants. This is however a hack (which I have not tried yet). Maybe instead the KDE font chooser can be altered to offer a wider list of choices in the Style column, which would (and should?) reflect all possible style values present in fontconfig cache files?

(A similar problem exists for the "Demi" variants, but this may be a bug in fontconfig, which should document them as bold variants. There are fonts with several bold versions though, and KDE would not allow to choose between them.)