Happy user of Mekkablue’s Noodler plugin to design monoline fonts, but wondering if creating a plugin similar to Offset Preview or even better Offset Curve Parameter Preview for Noodler would be possible? Did several tests comparing Offset Curve + Rounding Corners vs Noodler, Noodler workflow is more efficient in my case (and Offset Preview is not displaying Round Corners rendering anyway). My final goal is to create a CNC central line font (this topic seems to be quite recurrent in the forum lately) with different skeletons in relation with the diameter of a basic mill (constant circular diameter), i.e. mainly exploring skeleton design for a bold weight of a one stroke / central line font. I would need to live preview the thickness while drawing and playing around with the skeleton and Noodler to fine tune counter-shapes and intersections. The left part of a diagram in a Typotheque’s article about the design process of October font gives a pretty good idea. For info very basic and limited Python skills here.
Show Interpolation should do the job, assuming you have the instance set up correctly.
If I get it right, the idea is to have Noodler values pasted into Custom Parameters in different instances and then activate Show Interpolation? Did a quick test with equal overshoot down the baseline for regular and bold and +20 units a the top of the lowercases for the bolder weight (Noodler thickness 40 and 120), see below screenshots of the editing view (from the bolder weight) while drawing. Seems to work, thanks for the trick.
But from a UI beginners’ perspective a Noodler Preview plugin would be great for people designing simple rounded monoline fonts with one master only. Is adapting Offset Preview for Noodler a complex task? As already said basic / limited Python skills here but maybe the opportunity to jump in?
Which values should it use to preview? What advantage would it have over Show Instances? What use would it have beyond your current project to justify its development and maintenance? How could it be easy enough to use so it wouldn’t require a lot of additional support?
Honestly I am not convinced. We have such a function, it is called Show Preview Offset, which does the same thing, just without the rounding, and it has proven to be simply too hard to use and required a lot of support.
Feel free to write it yourself and take pieces from my plugins for it. They’re all open source.