Continuing the discussion from Guides and Rulers… like Adobe:
To my knowledge, there is no approved standard regarding the implementation of guides in user interfaces.
But what exactly do you mean? Dragging out guides from the ruler? Glyphs does not have rulers in the edit view. And what are you trying to achieve that you can’t in the current implementation?
Hi @soundofnature,
Have, you tried to add guidelines in the following way?
[Guide lines in GlyphsApp][1]
Best,
Nicolás
[1]: http://quick.as/vgz9sDRqk
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Thanks. You can also add a guideline by option-dragging an existing one.
Does Glyphs have colored guides yet? It would help me very much.
How would that help you?
Colored guides would be useful when there are too many guides to work with. For example, I am now working with a font that has, besides uppercase and lowercase, also smallcaps that are slightly higher then the x-hight, numbers that have their own height between x- and Cap-, oldstyle numerals and so on. Also, all these different heights need a horizontal guide in the middle so the center of the O matches the center of the D, for example. The overall picture is very crowdy. Also, sometimes guides would be only 2-4pt apart, as smallcaps vary in horizontal stroke thickness from both upper and lowercase, same with numbers.
There is a peculiar workaround: I could, in theory, set “dummy” alignment zones in the info panel in such a way as to imitate guides ( that way I would be able to see when the point is at the right height, it will change to a diamond). But I think colored guides would be more useful.
To me it sounds like an overdose of guidelines. Do you need most of what you described at the same time? Also, why do you want to know the exact half of cap height all the time? The only time I would use such value would be when I am making .case variants for example, and if you want something that exact, what you want is a number, not visual line.
That being said, I actually would appreciate if I could name guidelines.
In the case of small caps, Glyphs has a small cap height custom property.
I guess you are right about the overdose. I use the guides to scan for horizontal stroke irregularities in the Text view - I find this to be easier then measuring the stroke glyph by glyph. In that case, is there a way to assign guides to different layers, as you can do it Illustrator? One layer for sc, one for numbers, one for Caps, and so on.
No, the only option you have is per layer or per master. Guides for specific glyph groups may sound great on paper, but I think it will cause more problems than solves them.
If you want to measure horizontal stroke irregularities, I think vertical guides with measurement are smarter (you have to check per glyph, but you don’t have to switch to measurement tool).
I could write a script that places local guides to specific glyphs and automatically locks them.
Agree, it may cause more problems. No need for a script. Thank you for the advice. 
It might not be a standard but it’s widely approved throughout a lot of applications that moste people within the design industry use. The way guides are handled in Glyphs is one of the biggest issues I had, when I switched form FL quite some time ago.
My workaround now is, that I use the script “Guide through anchors” (that for some reason I can’t find on github anymore) that draws a guideline through two selected anchors. I binded the script to a keyboard shortcut and… voilà!
I so often see the over-use of guidelines to an extent that it is simply not useable anymore. More than once, I have seen over 50 local guidelines in a glyph, or dozens of global guidelines. And, in almost all cases, the guidelines were used as vertical metrics or as a substitute for zones.
So, I ask: Shall we really make the guidelines more complex? Clutter the clutter with names, and additional colors? Or would it be better to have more fine-tuning for vertical metrics and zones? To me, the latter option is the obvious choice.
This is exactly what zones are for.
Consider using the smallCapHeight parameter in the Masters.
This functionality is now part of the app. That is why I removed the script.
You do know you can duplicate an existing guideline by Option-dragging it? You can also copy and paste guidelines.
Actually, Tibetan was the case I had to manage heights more than usual and draw a lot more guidelines, as it involves a lot of vertically stacked glyphs. For non-Latin scripts, I think naming guidelines could be useful. But yeah, I agree that in most other cases guidelines are simply overused.
I totally agree on that. Working with less guidelines is always better… better vertical metrics and zoning options would be great!
Thought so. Thank goodness I still have the script… I’d die using the context menu!
Option-drag… I’m just so used to not work with it in font-editors, so I tend to forget about it…
+1 for guides per writing system.
Number of alignment zones is limited (especially it seems as UFO format treats baseline zone as a top zone?) and some writing systems have several tiers of glyphs that need to align.
EDIT BTW did something change with measurements? I was clicking anchor & guideline or node & guideline before to see the x- and y-difference but now that doesn’t popup the info thingy.
Is not only ufo. The spec puts the baseline zone into the BlueZones and all other bottom zones in the OtherBlues.
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