Question 1:
I exported a MM-document from FontLab, now this happens. It seems different areas of the glyph have become unlinked in some way. How to fix it?
Question 2:
If I delete lets say “o” from one master, it does not get deleted from master two. Is this supposed to be like this? Unlike FontLab behaviour? If so, is there a good reason (so I understand how to benefit from it).
Question 3:
Is there anyway to see a ”slider” (similar to FontLab axis slider) so it’s possible to visually drag between the weights to see how details change in the interpolation.
Pro Tip: it pays off to read the MM chapter in the handbook.
1: The path order is bad. The blue lines indicate which path corresponds to which path in the other Master. Try Layer > Correct Path Direction. This command will reorient and rearrange the outlines in the current layer. You can manually reorder by cutting and pasting.
2: This is intentional. And there are many reasons, we believe it makes much more sense to work this way. E.g., it is against Glyphs’ design principle to secretly cause data loss on a layer that is not displayed.
3: If you do this for only a handful of letters, you can slide between fore- and background with Filter > Transformations > Background.
If you want to do this on a broader scale (say, the whole font), it is much better to start with an approximate interpolation setting, then export the whole family and test it in InDesign, and afterwards make adjustments to the interpolation values, export again etc. This is the best way to see how the Bold looks next to the Regular, for example.
There is a script that helps you find good interpolation values. Usually it is a good first step: https://github.com/mekkablue/Glyphs-Scripts (look for Masters > Insert instances.py).
Q1: hit +shift+R in bothe masters, this will fix shape order/direction/oder in most cases
Q2: that is really great: even when chaining the light “o” and maybe trying oout a variant with other vectors the black will not have bent its vectors.
in glyphs you can work on the masters parallel from scratch, you do not have to merge two completely finished and compatible files.
Q3: no.
but when you have set some instances in the font-info, you can see them in the preview-bar at the app’s bottom.
and that is really great: as mentioned, you can edit both (or even three) masters independently from each other, AND when they are compatible, you can get a feeling for the whole font-family while designing one master.
I also believe this is better than linking the masters. However, I wish there were some actions available that work on an all-master basis but, well, if it’s against their principles…
As a recent FontLab switcher, you should keep in mind that even in the Font tab, most actions are applied only to the active master and selected glyphs, which is great but can sometimes be confusing until your mind has switched.
Q3
While I really found playing with the MM slider in FontLab very enjoyable, I have to say I am not missing it from a practical and rational point of view. Switching between the instances could be more convenient and faster, though (i.e. buttons instead of a drop-down?).
Tim: in my GitHub rep, there is a script that switches to the next/previous instance in the preview. You can give it a keyboard shortcut because you have a menu command then.
