For the arabic script or other fonts with joined glyphs, it would be very useful, if the measurement guide could show the distance to the bounding box, too.
Currently, I have to change to text view and use the measurement line, because also the measurement tool does not show this exact value.
The measurement line in Text mode is doing that.
Of course. But different to “normal” fonts, I adjust the “sidebearing” while editing the outlines. So in the moment, it is a perpetual switching between these modes. Could be very annoying…
(Isn’t the side bearing defined by the width of that small attached component?)
I like that the measurement tool is so powerful that it entirely ignores the body and lets me measure from any point to another, even above and below lines if I like.
Also I agree with Georg; the screenshot doesn’t look convincing to why you would need to measure sidebearings in the described manner. Also, sidebearing keys exist so that you don’t have to measure stuffs like that.
Ok, wrong example. My bad.
But not every glyph is based on composites, right?
For glyphs like this, it would be nice to have an exact value without switching to text mode, don’t you think so?
And even in the example with the composites, it could be helpful for the case, I have things messed up in the composite. That happens often enough. At least in my case…
In exactly this case you would have the measurement already when you hit Cmd+Option+Ctrl. The red numbers on the segments will give you its width.
I see your point. But there is also the use case to be able to measure to the next glyph. I wonder what is more interesting. Or if I could figure out to do both.
Maybe a simple switch in the view menu or - better - in the context menu?
This could also be useful for measuring ignoring overlappings, which was an old feature request of mine 
In your Arabic case, I normally select a segment and read the width value like this:
If the outline is separated, I merge it (shift+cmd+O), get the value, and undo.
Sidebearing measurement is also something that could be implemented in mekkablue’s Show Crosshair plugin. To me, that’s the most logical place.
As for the stem thickness ignoring the overlaps, may that be something that can be implemented in Show Stem Thickness plugin? In my case, I just merge temporarily as explained above. I sometimes want to know the corner cut distance, but the value is unclear until I merge it.
I added the measurement to the sidebearing as long only one layer is hit by the measurement line. So as soon as you measure into another outline, it will no longer add the sidebearing point.
Sounds good. I look forward to trying it out.
I am using it, too. But for often uses, its not very convenient…
The update is out.
Hmm, I’m not sure if I like this feature. This may be an edge case and I guess you could argue in both ways, but this reporting of seemingly much smaller values than expected did catch me off guard.
I was fearing that someone would complain about that. I think I can fix this.
I’m sure there’ll be moments when this behaviour can come in handy, and consider this is just a matter of getting used to it. Please feel free to leave it as is for now since it’s not really a complaint.
Apart from this very little irritation, the new behavior of the tool is absolutely perfect!
I fixed it. And also properly work with italics.
