Just had a case in which I had to duplicate a master (and then give it other coordinates) so as to get VF export to work. Then I realized that all the intermediate layers were also copied, which means there were two intermediate layers with identical coordinates in the respective glyphs. This doesn’t make much sense, of course.
What’s more, IMHO, all additional layers (including backup layers) should be removed when a master is duplicated. Any thoughts? Thanks!
I’ll have a look why I did it this way.
I think intermediate layers should absolutely be copied. For example, I have upright masters and duplicate them to be italic, I need the intermediates to be duplicated as well.
Backup layers, however, should not be copied along.
Okay, it depends on the use case. Maybe simply asking the user as it is copied? Or, providing a functionality to remove the duplicate intermediate layers immediately afterwards?
Are you sure you need to duplicate the intermediate layers? I have a feeling that many users follow the principle “2^n masters for n axes”. I personally try to stick to the principle “n+1 masters for n axes” whenever possible. In the latter case you should not need the copied intermediate layers as the information already exists. I guess it depends on whether you find redundancy acceptable or try hard to avoid it.
In case you want the copied intermediate layers you will still need to adjust the coordinates of the copied intermediate layers, I suppose? How do you do this? Do you go through all the relevant glyphs and adjust the value manually? That would be quite a hassle. Would you use a script to change the coordinates? Then you might as well use a script to add the intermediate layers again (I often add intermediate layers to a bunch of glyphs via script).
For italics, I need the intermediate layers copied. I don’t want to add them again via script and interpolate them again (or copy them from the existing intermediate layers), that’s quite an extra hassle. Simply changing all the intermediate layer coordinates once with a script is really quick and preserves the existing drawings, from which I can easily generate the italics/obliques.