Bracket trick: how do I make it work?

Glyphs
1

Hi, I’m trying to make the bracket trick work but I can’t seem to.

In the example below I want the lighter weights of the ‘r’ to have a serif at the right where the three heavy weights don’t.
I’ve set up two bracket layers that contain the same weight (700) but differ in shape and I’ve made sure that they are both compatible with their respective masters. This is how I understand it from the manual. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks, Alex

afbeelding 1.png1972×1166 104 KB

2

The ‘Bold Italic’ bracket layer has to be under the ‘Bold Italic’ master.

3

Thanks Georg,

The result appears to be more or less the same.

afbeelding.png1976×1168 110 KB

4

Can you post a screenshot of each layer?

5

Looks like they are not compatible. Compatibility view can help: View > Show Master Compatibility (Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-N).

6

sure, here they are.

100.png1626×1348 91.5 KB

light [700].png1632×1348 104 KB

Bold [700].png1626×1344 105 KB

900.png1628×1344 106 KB

7

and in compatibility view

afbeelding 2.png1674×1346 127 KB

8

the serif is a component, but in the Light Italic [700] layer it does not have the right interpolated weight.

9

Can you send me the .glyphs file? To support (at) (this website without www), please. I will have a look.

10

On it’s way.

11

The master layers and the bracket layers have to be compatible to each other (so the Bold Italic needs the serif, too). And the wight of the bracket layers has to match the name. So the Light Italic [700] has to be as light as the Light Italic…

12

Got it! I got the entire concept of working with bracket layers all wrong.

Thanks!
Alex

ps: Maybe a good idea to put a step by step guide for working with bracket layers in the manual because it’s not immediately obvious how to implement the technique. well, at least to me :slight_smile:

13

Did you try the tutorial? Tutorials show workflows, the handbook is more of a technical description of the options.

14

Aha, no, I didn’t know there was one. I will check it out, thanks.

15

The tutorial is indeed a lot clearer.

By the way: it appears to me that bracket layers and brace layers cannot be combined in one glyph, is this correct? I suppose working with bracket layers reduces the need for brace layers?

16

I never tried, but I can hardly think of a situation where this could be useful…? What would you need it for?

17

I don’t think I need it either. It’s just that I got the bracket trick only working after deleting a pre-existing brace layer.
As I said, I suppose bracket layers defeat the purpose of having a brace layer.