Cap/corner + components?

Glyphs
1

Hello!
I’d like to ask if there is any way to use the _cap or _corner features combined with components.
In my case, I’d like to have some swashed capitals on a serif font and I’d like to avoid un-linking basic cap form from its swashed one, knowing that I have to get rid of one serif to a swash attached instead.

Thanks

2

Not sure, I understand what you mean. Can you show an example picture?

3

Ok, I’m sending you a private message, thanks

4

Attaching cap or corner components to components is not possible because you cannot select their nodes. Considering the case of cap H and also cap H with initial swash added to top left as component, normally you should just use normal components and anchor to position swash (or treat swash like a letter because it needs to be spaced, and adjust its position by kerning, which is another useful case of my proposed double-underscore component, Georg :slight_smile: ).

5

Yes I was afraid of that Tosche…
BTW, for an upper-left swash, do you suggest to keep the original bounding box (the swash goes out of it on the left) or to include the swash into the glyph box? I’d do the 1st, especially if we consider the swashed cap used as 1st letter of a sentence as I think it makes more sense the cap to be aligned to the text block, not its swash, right?

6

That is entirely up to you, but I would give them a proper body because they might be preceded by quote marks (or any kind of punctuation), and space, when thy are used in a sentence, otherwise it will appear to have no space.
I understand your intention, but I might make them a separate font or use titl feature to make sure the users know what they are doing (titl is much less popular, but available in Adobe apps).

7

So the separate font would be the same glyphs excepted the caps? Or just the caps to be clearer?
In fact I’ve never used titl. For which use should it be intend for in theory? And how is it used in real life? (is it widely used??)

8

‘This feature replaces the default glyphs with corresponding forms designed specifically for titling. These may be all-capital and/or larger on the body, and adjusted for viewing at larger sizes.’

The classic examples would be Adieresis.titl with the dieresis pulled into the cap height, left and right of the apex, and a J.titl without a descender (if the default J has a descender, that is). The idea would be to achieve a more uniform block for a line of type.

9

thanks! I knew the official MS reference but hadn’t any practical example in mind (as I feel nobody would put display version of caps into this feature, preferring to sell a separate font file)

10

As another example, Adobe Garamond has display caps in the titl feature. They later started to make display fonts separately. It’s one of the under appreciated features that always sit in the OpenType menu.