Ok. Before you all think I don’t read up: I did read up and I did search the forum. So be gentle on me for asking something that you all probably think is obvious. I am struggling though…
I created a font called Mundbind. I exported it as Mundbind Regular and I used it in various programs (like Photoshop and Affinity Designer. It works like a charm.
Now I would like to add a cursive style. So I cursified the glyphs via the transformations panel, updated metrics, cleaned up the nodes, added extremes, you know, the works. I called it Mundbind Italic, I set the italic angle, created an instance that I called Italic and filled in the ‘is the italic style of’ - and I exported the font. Sure enough, it shows up in my fonts folder as Mundbind-Italic.
It was probably too simple of me to assume it would actually show up in the drop down menu for Mundbind font. It does not. Only the regular style shows up.
Now, I can rename this font Mundbind Italic, so it will show up in the drop down fonts menu as a separate font, but this cannot be the modus operandi.
My question is: how to do this right??? I open the .glyphs file for Mundbind (which has one master only) - then what? If I cursify the font, then I will end up with ONLY the italic style and my regular style is gone…
As I have said before, for 10+ years I have worked with Fontlab and creating an Italic style is quite easy: in fact, almost all of my published fonts have an italic style. I am still learning Glyphs and so far I have been able to produce working fonts with it, except the Italics…
It is all connected by the font names. You should set the family name to Mundbind in both files and use “Regular” and “Italic” as instance names (and set the “Is Italic” as you did). You might need to remove some custom name entries as those might not fit with the family setup.
@GeorgSeifert - Thanks for that insight and yes, I did read the naming bit.
So, I tried to figure out what it is that I do wrong. I created one .glyphs file named Mundbind which has a master and an instance ‘Regular’;
I also created a .glyphs file named Mundbind Italic with a master and an instance ‘Italic’, and set the ‘is italic’.
I exported both, the fonts show up as Mundbind-Regular and Mundbind-Italic.
When I try to use the font in, say, Affinity designer, I only get the ‘regular’.
I have NO idea what goes wrong here: it must be something so obvious that everyone does it with their eyes closed, but something that I am just not seeing…
@GeorgSeifert - Before I actually tested all of this, I cleaned my font cache using FontFinagler, so no, it is not that. It must be something really obvious that I don’t (yet) see. And I think it has to do with either masters or instances. I do not need to make an Italic master, do I??
In your Font Info window, in the first panel (Font), is the family name set as Mundbind? Or did you name it Mundbind italic? It is important that your roman and italic both have the same family name.
Otherwise, if you want to, I am happy to take a look at your files, if you want to send it to me (DM).
@SCarewe - Hey Sebastian, I did actually name both Mundbind (actually, it is called Mundbind NL; a friend from Denmark makes a similar font and calls it Mundbind DK - an inside joke of sorts). If I can’t find out what it is, I will happily take you up on your offer!
Someone please verify this if true: Aren’t there different font menu problems between some programs? Like, between Adobe, Microsoft and the MacOS font menu?
If that is the case, could the problem fields be identified just by seeing if it breaks everywhere, or where it breaks?
I remember this being a problem, but I’m not sure how this is today.
Oh and I feel your frustration Hanoded.
I attended a 2 day seminar on font menu best practices with an expert from Adobe, while studying for Masters. This was just before Glyphs came out, around 10 years ago. Back then, you had to use a bunch of scripts and command line tools, and the pertinent information took two days to deliver.
So when this stuff fails, it’s a real swamp to deal with. It’s not a Glyphs issue as such, it’s just a mess that happened somewhere between apple, microsoft, IBM and adobe, I think, where font technology was never co-ordinated, competition trumped the co-ordination that would have served their clients best, and (I suspect) lackluster documentation on the technologies each companies created, so those who deal with it have to reverse-engineer quite a bit. The documentation problem has been a thing in other parts of font technology, I assume the same applies here. (some of this knowledge may be outdated or misremembered, dont sue me Tim Cook)
So yeah. When these things break it can be maddening, it’s not you that’s dumb, it’s the font tech.
@sveinbjorn Well spoken! Even though I am pretty damn sure it is something that I overlooked in my enthusiasm to learn Glyphs quickly and my very limited knowledge of how a font should be made properly…
You are so right about the way the tech giants interpret how a font should behave: it sometimes just doesn’t make any sense. A while back, Myfonts would not accept the fonts it had been accepting for years, because of win ascent / win descent issues (tops and bottoms apparently were cut off). The solution was simple: find out your highest and lowest glyphs, then just make up a number that was way above the highest and way below the lowest node in your font. This worked for windows, but it resulted in really ugly line heights…
FYI: Both fonts had custom parameters set in the Font Info, which set the POSTSCRIPT_NAME entry to Mundbind NL. With these parameters removed (or set to the correct name for the italic), the fonts show up fine.
Before I actually tested all of this, I cleaned my font cache using 
Well spoken! Even though I am pretty damn sure it is something that I overlooked in my enthusiasm to learn Glyphs quickly and my very limited knowledge of how a font should be made properly…