Active info box

Glyphs
1

Hello,
When I adjust a glyph’s spacing, I hold down the spacebar to see the filled outline and then adjust the sidebearings with the up/down arrow keys. Unfortunately, holding spacebar often (but not always I think) means the sidebearing field loses focus, and the active thing is then any selected node…this means that pressing the arrow keys moves the selected node, rather than adjusting the sidebearings. Please get the sidebearing field to not register any spacebar event, so that the glyph sidebearings can be altered while previewing the filled outline. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve accidentally been moving a bunch of nodes up and down when I thought I was adjusting the sidebearings…

2

Have you considered staying in text mode and using the spacing shortcuts (ctrl- and cmd-left/right)? Or, using the Info box in text mode? Then the outline is always displayed as filled. And you don’t need to intermittently hold down the space bar for switching to a preview.

3

Yeah, I know. But I find spacing and moving letterparts are so interdependent that I want to adjust them almost together, a bit of spacing, a bit of stretching, you know.

4

What I do in cases like this is have the letter twice in edit view. You edit one of them, and watch the other.

5

Yes, I do this. That’s what makes it harder to tell if you’re actually moving nodes rather than adjusting spacing, especially if you’re zoomed out. Is it so hard to make the sidebearings field ignore spacebar presses?

6

I read this last post multiple times and I do not understand it, I am afraid. Why would you not be able to tell if you’re changing the sidebearings when you’re changing the sidebearings?

7

I got it. I have a look.

1 Like
8

Sorry Rainer, I didn’t express that very nicely.

  1. When in select mode, click eg left sidebearing field in the info box;
  2. Press space to fill the glyph and disappear all handles/nodes/guidelines that distract from spacing;
  3. The fact that spacebar preview can be activated when also the sidebearing field is active implies the two can operate at once;
  4. Use up arrow to add a unit to the sidebearing;
    5, Sidebearing increases;
  5. Unfortunately, without any further user intervention, focus leaves sidebearing field and reverts to the edit view;
  6. Further up arrow presses then operate on any selected nodes, moving parts of the glyph up;
  7. When zoomed out, and making adjustments of only a few units, the fact that the focus has changed is not always apparent;
  8. Glyph outlines are being changed when the intention is to adjust sidebearings.

Given that a single-unit increment using the arrow keys work (step 5), it seems a bug to me that any further arrow key events cause a change of focus. The user should surely click back to the edit view if they want to make changes there, otherwise focus should stay where the user put it, in the info box, until return is pressed?

9

(I’ve also noticed occasionally using the arrow keys in the sidebearings box without pressing spacebar causes the same thing. It’s not consistent though, and I can’t figure out what triggers it.)

10

Can you try the 2.5 cutting edge version. I just tired it and it seems to work like you suggested.