I would LOVE a quick button (or something) to transform an instance to a master.
Christmas soon, right?
How often do you need this?
I use it quite a lot when creating a fatter or thinner style, by first extrapolating and then sorting the details out. Also when ālockingā a certain instance as master to polish it further (if itās an intermediate master).
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Me tooā¦
I recently had to do this the long way around as well. I ended up going through each glyph and using the Re-Interpolate function with a blank master. (Iād be happy being able to run re-interpolate on multiple glyphs from the font grid view or having a shortcut for that function)
Iāve wanted this feature from time to time. But it wouldnāt save me much time over simply generating the instance and adding it manually.
that is what I though. It takes six clicks like that.
You donāt need to do that.
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Ohh for some reason I thought Generate Instances decomposed componentsāI stand corrected
that is what I though. It takes six clicks like that.
Well, not exactly. Letās say you have 30 instances. What happens when you generate instances? All 30 will be generated, unless you release the button āis activeā first.
If all 30 is generated you have to close all 30 open fonts before proceed working. If you de-select them first as described above, you have to make them active again when you are going back to work with the font again unless Iām missing some crucial information.
I didnāt expect that people would use that so often that the current way would be to long. Iāll see if we find a good place to put this.
That are one a few more clicks. Select all instances, command click the one you need an uncheck the āactiveā box.
Yes! As I wrote, this is something I would LOVE ā I donāt think itās necessary really, but it would help a lot at least for me, and I bet everybody else would use it too 
I thought I just write this as a wish for the future.
Cheers!
G
I already used a āexport instance and import as masterā twice. It would be nice something native to do that. =)
We do it here quite a lot. Yes it is not sooooo complicated, but it would be very nice if it could be just one click away. Thank you!
Yes, instance as a master, please please!
Also: Generate only one (the selected) instance instead of only āGenerate Instancesā (I know I can uncheck all instances except one but donāt want to because restoring which instances were active and which ones not is a hassle. Working with a temp duplicate of the file is unelegant, too).
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This is a core button in Metapolator. I think more people will need this as they develop Variation Fonts, and if you add a button, it will get used a lot.
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If I add this button, people will use it. And I suspect that a lot of times a few brace layers would be a much better solution.
Especially with variation fonts one should be very carful with extra masters as it blows up the file size.
As an alternative to brace layers, it would be good to have some kind of āincomplete mastersā. If I only have a small handful of glyphs that need intermediate instances then brace layers work well but if there are lots of glyphs with brace layers I wish theyād be a master instead. This would give you a better overview, say, when in the font tab, one could activate the intermediate master and instantly see which glyphs have an intermediate design.
Also, I suspect people donāt always want to use it for adding more masters but for replacing them. Assume you have drawn a Light and a Bold. Then you decide youād rather have an Extrabold master. With āInstance as masterā, one could set up the Extrabold instance (extrapolated), turn it into a master and then delete the old Bold master. This is a scenario I have had several times in my work.
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But brace layers donāt solve metrics problems, just shapes problems. So, sometimes, you really need to create a new master after a while working. =)
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