Hello everybody,
I did diacritics for Hebrew and everything is working fine so far. But i want every possibility of a diacritic/glyph in hebrew as a single glyph without the mark cloud.
is it possible to decompose hebrew diacritics/glyphs in order to have them as components?
Thanks for help.
The Glyphs Team is doing a great job, thank all of you for!
I am not quite sure what you mean. Are you aware of the component technique, and how to use anchors? Please read the Reusing Shapes chapter in the handbook, and the Diacritics tutorial on this website.
Hello and thanks for your reply,
yes im aware of the technic and i also know how to use the anchors, it worked in the latin version very well but in hebrew its not the same.
What I do not understand is the without mark cloud part. The mark cloud only shows when you select an anchor. What exactly are you trying to achieve?
Sorry for my confusing words, im trying to be more clear.
Im working on a latin/hebrew project. I did the diacritics in latin and everything went good so far, i could create the glyphs i wanted with the known technic.
Now im trying to do the same in Hebrew and its also working like that. Almost. Not with all the Glyphs i need, for example:
אֲ אֳ אֱ אִ אֵ אַ אָ אֻ אֶ אְ אֹ אּ בֲ בֳ בֱ בִ בֵ בַ בָ בֻ בֶ בְ בֹ בּ גֲ גֳ גֱ גִ גֵ גַ גָ גֻ גֶ גְ גֹ גּ דֲ דֳ דֱ דִ דֵ דַ דָ דֻ דֶ דְ דֹ דּ הֲ הֳ הֱ הִ הֵ הַ הָ הֻ הֶ הְ הֹ הּ וֲ וֳ וֱ וִ וֵ וַ וָ וֻ וֶ וְ וֹ וּ זֲ זֳ זֱ זִ זֵ זַ זָ זֻ זֶ זְ זֹ זּ חֲ חֳ חֱ חִ חֵ חַ חָ חֻ חֶ חְ חֹ טֲ טֳ טֱ טִ טֵ טַ טָ טֻ טֶ טְ טֹ טּ יֲ יֳ יֱ יִ יֵ יַ יָ יֻ יֶ יְ יֹ יּ כֲ כֳ כֱ כִ כֵ כַ כָ כֻ כֶ כְ כֹ כּ לֲ לֳ לֱ לִ לֵ לַ לָ לֻ לֶ לְ לֹ לּ מֲ מֳ מֱ מִ מֵ מַ מָ מֻ מֶ מְ מֹ מּ נֲ נֳ נֱ נִ נֵ נַ נָ נֻ נֶ נְ נֹ נּ סֲ סֳ סֱ סִ סֵ סַ סָ סֻ סֶ סְ סֹ סּ עֲ עֳ עֱ עִ עֵ עַ עָ עֻ עֶ עְ עֹ פֲ פֳ פֱ פִ פֵ פַ פָ פֻ פֶ פְ פֹ פּ צֲ צֳ צֱ צִ צֵ צַ צָ צֻ צֶ צְ צֹ צּ קֲ קֳ קֱ קִ קֵ קַ קָ קֻ קֶ קְ קֹ קּ רֲ רֳ רֱ רִ רֵ רַ רָ רֻ רֶ רְ רֹ רּ שֲ שֳ שֱ שִ שֵ שַ שָ שֻ שֶ שְ שֹ שּ תֲ תֳ תֱ תִ תֵ תַ תָ תֻ תֶ תְ תֹ תּ ךִ ךֵ ךַ ךָ ךְ ךּ
The problem is that Glyphs is only creating these letters kind of virtual (? sry its hard do describe) But i want them separated in order to place the diacritics as i want.
I hope you understood, if not please dont hesitate to ask.
Thank you a lot!
You want precomposed diacritics as opposed to mark positioning?
Window > Glyph Info, search for -hb, some of those have a Unicode and are in the glyph database. You can add them by selecting them and pressing the Add button in the lower right corner.
The others you can create as ligatures, simply add them with the naming scheme base_mark-hb, i.e., the name of the base glyph without the -hb (e.g. he, vav, zayin, etc.), followed by an underscore _, followed by the name of the mark (segol, shindot, etc.), followed by -hb at the end.
This is a hack though. Can’t you get the marks to position correctly with the anchors? That would be the technically better solution, and it usually works very well.
I’m not sure why you need a different position for each mark. Can you give an example?
If you need to see the position of a particular mark, add all base glyphs to the edit view and then select an anchor in the mark.
Yes this is exactly what i want, because its hard to do the positioning when you have all the diacritics above each other (e.g. first screenshot). I will see how i can get along with it.
Thank you very much for your help.
I need a different positioning for each mark because for example in the letter qof i have a smaller amount of space underneath, this is why i thought it would be good if i can do the positioning for this letter more individual. Especially because not all diacritics have the same width.
I would like to bring this subject back up, since I’m running into similar issues.
Before I begin, I must mention that I’m not a font designer, so I don’t understand a lot of the technical terms used when talking about Glyph technology. Also, I’m just starting to learn ancient Hebrew, so please correct me if I’m misstating anything. I haven’t been able to find a monospaced Hebrew font (for commandline usage) that I like, so decided to try and create one of my own. A good friend recommended Glyphs, and I must admit it’s an incredibly well done app and easy to use.
So the problem I’m encountering, and I believe it’s similar to what Schlomo is describing, is that I can’t find a way to place the bottom vowels/diacritical marks in unique positions. I can anchor them, but then they seem all stuck together, so no matter where I move the anchor point they all move to that same location.
For a specific example, let’s take the Shewa (2 dots that look like the colon character). Usually it is centered underneath the consonant. But for a final Kaf character, the Shewa can be placed in the middle of the character. I’ve attached an image which includes a TextEdit.app window on the left with how I’d like the Shewa to look in the final Kaf. It also shows what my current font looks like, since the Shewa is tied to the other vowels with their bottom anchor.
There’s other instances too, where I’d like to be able to move a single vowel character (like possibly just the Qamets, etc) to another location under different consonants (similar to what Schlomo mentioned: “But i want them separated in order to place the diacritics as i want.”). With the anchor keeping everything together, it doesn’t seem possible.
It seems that Hebrew unicode isn’t set up for every character combination (if I’m understanding correctly). For example, typing the final Kaf (Shift-k) and a Shewa (Option-zero) on a Mac using Hebrew-QWERTY keyboard - these are still 2 separate unicode characters as can be seen with Python. So with that said, it looks like Glyphs gives you the Hebrew consonants and then separate the vowels and other marks, which must somehow line up with each consonant.
c = ‘ך’
hex(ord(c))
‘0x5da’
c = ‘ךְ’
hex(ord(c))
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 1, in
TypeError: ord() expected a character, but string of length 2 found
To sum all this up, most of the time the bottom vowel/diacritical marks will work just fine in a centered position. There are a few instances though, where it’d be nice to be able to place a specific vowel/diacritical in a unique location for a few of the different consonants. Mekkablue mentions a hack. I haven’t tried it, but is this possibly the best solution to be able to place the vowel/diacritical marks where we want them?
Thanks.
Jay
You can have different anchor names for each mark. It is a bit annoying as each mark can only have one “underscore” anchor, so you need to repeat that anchor in all base glyphs. Or, you make a prebuild glyphs and add substitutions (maybe in the ccmp feature).
Or you do something like this:
lookup finalKafShewaShift {
pos finalkaf-hb shewa-hb' <-20 500 0 0>;
} finalKafShewaShift;
Perhaps in locl, then call the lookup in dist (makes it work in Word) and kern.
Thank you GeorgSeifert and Mekkablue for your quick replies and suggestions. I’m currently trying to add the lookup, and it seems to work although I’m not quite sure what I’m doing and not sure how to add the kern part in. Here’s what I have so far by adding as a prefix:
Note too, that I’m also finding that when I test this in the commandline (OS X 10.14.2 using Glyphs 2.5.2 (1186)), that when typing the Shewa in the final Kaf, the character gets pulled downwards, until I type another character after it (see image above). This happens when I use the lookup in dist, as well as if I try to manually create separate anchors and rename each uniquely. I can still work with this, and am thrilled to be able to place the vowels/diacriticals where I want, but is there possibly a solution to fix the final Kaf from being pulled down?
Again, thank you for your help with this.
Jay
