use a colon instead, it's one character and easier to type. ie : Me Me Me!

reproes at Second Life Release 7.1.3.7453541295

After delving a bit into the viewer code — at least, as far as I can — there seems to be no good reason for "broken italics". The function in question seems to be handled by , which is in — a file which remains untouched for 9 months, so that cannot be it.

It could also be something coming from , but that one has not been touched for three months, so, again, we can discard it as well.

The font used is DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf, and I've checked, the included font is fine.

Nevertheless, it doesn't show with the command. Alas, whispering, which uses italics, doesn't work either — so whatever the problem might be, it's just connected to the italic font(s) provided, and how these are then used upstream, i.e., at the level of LL's own source code.

This goes through several layers, most notably a Freetype layer and LL's own layer built on top of Freetype (thus, if something better comes along, LL cam replace it breaking things (in theory only, of course!).

But I couldn't see any calls to Deja Vu's font type. I also checked under Firestorm - where you can tinker much more with fonts — and I get even less information on the logs!

Although Firestorm's currently released version is yet PBR-enabled, and therefore corresponds to LL's version before the PBR one (plus additional patching by the Firestorm crew), we're comparing apples with oranges, but Firestorm has no issue whatsoever with displaying italics/oblique — exactly how LL's own viewer to work, before they released the latest upgrade...

If is the reason for the italics missing (somehow, enabling PBR materials "broke" italics), well, then, I guess that's worth taking a look at what's going on during those font loading procedures. From taking a peek at the code, it seems that there are points where the fonts can be loaded, with many fallback mechanisms and so forth, because some methods for loading the fonts are faster than others. It's actually not very easy to figure out which ones are currently active, and which are not. All I can see is that the code calling the italics font in those two scenarios (whisper the emote, which LL calls "IRC mode"). Why it doesn't get displayed is a mystery to me.

Also note that shouting still applies bold to the font, just as before. The issue is really only with the italics. But, as said, the (recently) upgraded Deja Vu Oblique font is fine — there is really nothing wrong with it.

Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one bothering to file a ticket :)