I have some glyphs (e.g. those with caron.alt) that have automatic sidebearings set with additional space for the diacritic using the ==+n trick.
It would be very helpful if I could adjust that modifier using the Ctrl/Cmd-arrow and Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-arrow keys that are the usual way of adjusting sidebearings.
I think this is better done with a set of two scripts. It would overcomplicate things for most users.
With respect, I really disagree. First of all, it may be that “most users” don’t have the ==+n trick set up and so would never see this; those that are sophisticated enough to set it up probably have a reasonably high tolerance for complication.
But even more, this seems like it would simplify rather than complicate things: it would merely allow the same keystrokes you’d use to adjust sidebearings on any normal glyph to also work for a ==+n glyph. Really it’s expected behavior, and the confusion comes in because it doesn’t work as expected at present.
And I don’t think scripts would be a workaround, because wouldn’t they need to be triggered by unique keyboard shortcuts? My point is to have the usual keys work in this circumstance.
The complication is that you accidentally trigger it and that you e.g. change a side bearing of m from =n to =n+10 when what you really wanted is change n and sync m. Now you can simply recalculate the metric keys. In the scenario, you would end up with invalid metric keys, and very easily so.
Just so we’re on the same page, note that I’m talking here about auto-aligned glyphs, for which you can now adjust the space with, for example, “==+10”.
I am not talking about regular (non-auto-aligned) glyphs that are keyed to other glyphs.
In my original formulation of the request, when I said “==+n” I was using “n” as a variable for any number, not as an example of a sidebearing reference to the letter n.
I’m envisioning that my suggestion would not affect auto-aligned sidebearings that hadn’t already been given an arithmetic modifier, nor would it affect sidebearing references.
So command-shift-right would change, for example, a “==+7” sidebearing to “==+17” in the same way it now changes a “5” sidebearing to “15”. It would have no affect on an “auto” sidebearing nor an “=H”.
Is this trick used to set other sidebearings in terms of another glyph? I do this thing where I try to define other glyps spacing in terms of the O & I for the caps. Right now I’m sorta having to convert the sidebearing myself “=27 vs. =.5*O” , but I’m sure theres a way to either script this or maybe someone has already done it?
Try it the other way around: =O*0.5
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Yes , but when but when I’m adjusting spacing using keyboard shortcuts I wish that instead of changing the number it maybe would just change the multiplication factor…or essentially just making whatever the number needs to be in terms of the other glyph.
Please don’t overuse metrics keys. They are super useful for glyphs with the same shapes (like the left side of H, F and D) but much more trouble in most other cases.