Dollar with gap implementation

1

After reading the tutorial on dollar with gap switching, I tried to implement it myself, with the followig aim:

• In the lighter weights, I only want the dollar with stroke running through
• In the bolder weights, I want the dollar with gap as the default and the dollar with stroke available via ss02

So, I followed the instructions in the tutorial but for the Rename Glyphs parameter, I used

dollar=dollar.ss02
dollar.gap=dollar

(plus all the other bits such as cent and the various figuer styles) in the bold.
Turns out this does not work because the original dollar glyph is removed even though I “saved” it by renaming it first. Seems like a bug in Glyphs?

Next attempt, I tried having no “dollar” glyph in the working file and instead using

dollar.stroke=dollar

in the light and

dollar.stroke=dollar.ss02
dollar.gap=dollar

in the bold.

This preserves both glyphs but the dollar with gap is now non-exporting. It is in contradiction to what the manual says:

Will overwrite any previously existing glyph with the same name, update composites that employ the glyph, and always export the resulting glyph, no matter whether the Exports attribute of the source glyph was activated or not.

Seems like a bug in Glyphs?

The work-around I found was to create an empty exporting dummy “dollar” glyph, which makes the resultig “dollar” exporting. Ugly but it works.

Wait, it doesn’t! With this solution, the ss02 feature is simply not created. Feels like playing cat and mouse with Glyphs.

My final solution is to name the stroked dollar “dollar.ss02” in the working file (again, this is ugly), and then use

dollar.ss02=dollar

in the light and

dollar.gap=dollar

in the bold, of course, with dummy dollar (and cent and all the other variants). It took me about two hours in total to figure it out.

So, my question is: Am I missing something totally obvious, or is the behaviour I want too non-standard, or should I just accept this work-around and shouldn’t complain?

2

Two glyphs:

  1. dollar with gap
  2. dollar.ss02 with stroke

In the lighter weights, you would add a parameter:

  • Rename Glyph: dollar.ss02=dollar

The tutorial does not show exchanging glyphs against each other like this. It only shows replacing one with another, and that is all the Rename Glyphs parameter can do.

3

Interesting. We are simply treating the exception as the default and working in reverse logic. Feels strange but it is indeed the simplest solution under the current circumstances. I’d still prefer to call the dollar with stroke dollar (which also has an impact on typing in Glyphs). I still believe my first attempt should be working and it is a bug in Glyphs.

This is not what I am tring to achieve.

4

Once you rename a glyph, the original name is gone, and no other glyph can take its place anymore. That is the limitation of the current implementation.

You can type dollar.ss02 in Glyphs if you leave ss02 on in the features.

5

I’m working on it.