For several years I wanted a “tracking” slider inbuilt in the font editor. I think it would be really useful.
It purpose would be to test how the fonts spacing and kerning looks with different “user settings” i.e when the user track or kern whole words and sentences.
Just a simple slider. Perhaps also connected with a feature to “add this setting to the font” if for instance the whole spacing should be changed in the font.
I prefer to test it in Indesign as it allows much better comparison layouts. If you follow this guide it is almost as fast as a build in solution.
Related: http://www.glyphsapp.com/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=1260
This would be very handy when spacing the font.
Testing spaced-out settings in InDesign is not feasible if you really want to work on the sidebearings.
Going via InDesign is of course an option, and I do it now but it’s not really the best way.
The addition of that feature would be really, really handy because, as Tim says, you can instantly work on the side bearings and kerning and see so it doesn’t crash for a user who prefer super tight tracking. Or vice versa.
Pretty please with butter on it?
I think reducing the tracking is a simple and effective way to quickly see where you have side baring / spacing issues. I did this very often in FontLab and could quickly fix some of the mistakes you easily oversee with huge amounts of glyphs.
So I agree with Göran that a slider would be great. Just like you have one for the blurring in preview mode.
René
Tracking slider would be awesome feature. I asked for it some time ago.
Working in Indesign (CS4) is a real pain for me. The canvas jumps insanely when I accidentally slide with a mouse. And renderer makes glyphs look creepy when zoomed out which make it unusable for spacing.
I will see what I can do.