Multiple instances of the same component with anchors?

1

Hello everyone, first of all I hope I this question hasn’t been answered before, I searched the forums but couldn’t find anything.
Anyway I tried to build a typeface out of components, but I got to a problem - I tried to build the m out of components - so there is a stem component, and a smart arch component (like you showed in the tutorial).
The problem is, that I tried to make the serifs as smart components too (so I can change the width accordingly as it would be needed in the middle of the m for instance) AND I also wanted those to connect with anchors. But here is where it gets tricky - I have no idea how to make this work…
For instance I tried to add an anchor for the bottom left serif in the arch component and the corresponding anchor in the serif component too. But when I have multiple copies of the arch component in one glyph and I try to add the serif component for each arch, the anchor places all instances of the serif component on the first copy of the arch component.

I’m not sure if this is possible at all or if I should do this completely different, but is there a solution to this? My main goal is to be able to change one component (or just adjust the smart sliders) and have the other components stick to the component automatically. I hope this makes sense and somebody has a solution for this problem…

Thanks in advance!

1 Like
2

You either figure out a smart structure of anchors for your smart components, or you use corner components for the serifs: https://www.glyphsapp.com/blog/new-features-in-glyphs-2-0 (scroll down a bit).

3

The order of components is important too.

4

Oh ok, thank you for your quick reply! I didn’t realise that the placement order was important too! Thanks I’ll check it out immediately. :smile:

5

I just wanted to add that it works amazing now - it was all a problem with the order of placement! Thank you so much!!!

(the corner components did not work for me since I want them to be smart as well, also I think you cannot place a corner component onto a component, right? - both of those features would be nice for the future by the way… :blush:)

6

But you could add the serif to the smart component (the stem) and control it from the “m”. You can have nested smart components.

7

Oh wow that is an even better solution! Thank you so much!