If you select two nodes, you get the handy extra info box that shows their horizontal and vertical distances (among other things). I would find it useful to also see their direct distance (along the hypotenuse you could say) in that box–especially if I could enter a number into that field and have the position(s) adjust as I can with the H and V measurements.
This would be super useful for establishing consistency, for example making the thickness of the terminals the same in letters that end at all different directions.
Being able to see and set the angle (as you can with guides) would be a bonus.
EDIT: I see that the Show Distance and Angle plug-in is a way of getting the math, but not inputting the desired distance as I’m requesting.
What do you mean by »inputting«?
You can select two nodes, the info appears, and then just adjust the nodes via the bounding box OR the w/h values while having the info still visible.
By “inputting,” I mean I’d like to be able to click in a field and type 50 if I want the distance to be 50.
I do concede that adjusting the bounding box holding option (to center the adjustment) and shift (to retain the proportions) gets me to the same end, but not as neatly as direct-entry would.
I’ve been searching the forum and reading the resources and I feel like this would be a valuable feature in glyphs, similar to a ‘flex box’ or some sort of auto-distribute within a selection of objects. Or even just simple as ‘set a value of distance between’ selection. We probably approch visual systems differently and are influenced by previous tools and platforms we’ve used – being a figma user Glyphs is very logical to me, but I would love to enter digits to control the space between shapes, paths, and components. I understand that all the information I need is there and available, but I’m used to throwing shapes around by different values haphazardly in the creative process without measuring and zooming to see if it’s right. (f.e. 8, 16, to 128 units influenced by key-combo increments)
I’d love to not leave glyphs to make these things in figma, where it’s set up as px as em proxy artboard. It feels redundant and I keep thinking that I am missing something.
before you tell me to code it – I’ve used Glyphs now for about three weeks, it’s definitely on the roadmap to learn python in relation to Glyphs – but the skill is not there currently, and I’m not convinced I haven’t overlooked something.
While I wanted something similar myself from time to time, it’s not as easy in most cases.
In your example, you measure from the bottom of one shape to the top to the other. But there are other cases where you would want to distribute shapes based on their centers. Or their tops. Or bottoms. Or their visual centers, which are impractical to calculate.
Your example with the equal sign is the most straightforward case with no overshoots or any other optical corrections that would need to be taken into consideration.
A user interface like you proposed could be made fairly easily, but I suspect it would be insufficient in most other cases. Still useful, no doubt, but perhaps there is a better way that fits better with the requirements of type design as compared to the more geometric requirements in something like Figma.
Best bet is to add a guide in measurement mode and move the objects until the distance fits.
The problem with turning this into a user interface is that there are three factors at play, two object positions plus the distance. What you want to achieve is certain positions of the 2+ objects, but just the distance is insufficient for determining these positions.
The info box might be too limited for this. But a “Distribute” palette might be useful. And those panels can be implemented in python. So you can give it a try yourself
And absolutely, I just grabbed the space between view from figma, to show what I was thinking. I’m still getting into Glyphs and this probably sounds very “new user” to you, I mainly wanted to confirm my own research, that due to Glyphs technical structure and it’s purpose of designing and delivering fonts/code, there are certain concepts that are not so cut and dried as they can be in applications like Figma, Affinity or Framer, where no one is worried about sidebearings, bracing layers or auto alignment ancor prefixes *#_.
I’m also learning that in Glyphs I have to be extra mindful of the micro vs. macro, it’s very easy to loose time in both the details of specific forms and in the loving practice of RTFM (a self optimized workflow research)
I did install the script from mekkablue, Distribute (@FlorianPircher). It’s solid and paired with guides it will do very well.
On a sidenote, I’ve been reading so many tutorials lately, how-to articles and comments here in the forum, from you – helping each other, and giving feedback. It reminded me of art school in the best way, you have a good community going.
This is my learning Glyphs font, it’s LTTR skeleton based, expanded and cleaned up to 3 masters, on 6 instances — teaching me core concepts with practical application, next up is slanting it, and then maybe add width axis.
