Hello 
I would like to propose a state of the art font selector (like e.g. in Apple Pages 4.3) in the “formatting” tool bar including two drop-down lists – one for “font family” (Helvetica, Gill Sans, Times etc.) and another one for the “type face” (Light, Regular, Bold, Italic, Light Italic etc.).
This would appear to be enhancement request fdo#66792. Be aware that there are many enhancement requests related to fonts as everyone seems to have their preferred application / method of working. The enhancement request mentioned (using Pages as an example) deals with the same idea proposed in fdo#60741 (which uses NeoOffice as an example). It is impossible to make everyone happy.
Yes, indeed, it is indeed a similar thing as in enhancement request fdo#66792.
Thank you for finding and posting the link!
Please be aware of the fact, that NeoOffice’s solution as discribed in fdo#60741 is only a dirty workarround. This was even stated by the developers of NeoOffice.