I’ve been experimenting a lot with Variable fonts recently and found something.
This is how it is setup in glyphs:
And this is the Virtual Master:
It seems as the component glyphs are not following the changes of the key glyphs when it comes to:
– Sidebearings
– Anchors
This is the result:
However, when exporting instances with values from the virtual master it seems to follow. Also in the preview panel in Glyphs.
What version of Glyphs do you have?
The side bearing is most likely a known problem in Apples Text rendering.
I use the latest Cutting Edge Beta. This is only happening to the Variable font, not the generated instances if I instead generate normal OTF’s.
It seems as if the side bearing and anchor problem is related, since the side bearing and the anchor stays on place, but the outline changes as expected.
So you think that Apple’s Text rendering is also responsible for the anchor problem?
It seems that the anchors are actually fine, only the contents are misplaced.
No, the anchors seem to keep the placement of the T that is on the Master layer and do not follow the T on the virtual master layer. So neither the anchors or the side bearings are actually moving as they should. See this image:
An update :). If I place a component glyph on the Virtual Master layer the Variable font works as expected! But should that really be needed if you already set the variation on the non-component glyph? Would sure be great if the components side bearing and anchors also follows without having to put a component glyph on each virtual master layer. I mean, the key glyph does.
Sorry to be nagging about this, but I just want this incredible software to be even better!
Can you send me the .glyphs file?
OK! Thanks for having a look.
You need to add the brace layer to all ‘T’ glyphs. Those glyphs need to have deltas to move the accent and to change the width.
OK, so that is how it works basically! Thanks.
Maybe an update in the future could be to not needing to have this layer on component glyphs? I’m thinking since it’s anyway just a component glyph there, maybe Glyphs could just do the maths upon export?
Or maybe some feature: ”Fill up Virtual Masters” with corresponding component glyphs?
I’ll think about it.
Any news on this? What is interesting is that it works when exporting a lot of instances from the same source font, but not when exporting a Variable font? So it feels it already works the way I suggested, but only when exporting instances.
I know, @filipdesigniq just discovered a bug that seems to have the same root. It is on our list.
Is this getting fixed anytime soon? I am basically holding a release just because of this problem. 
Which app version are you using? Should be fixed already.
Version 2.6.5 (1342)
Not working here unfortunately.
Centered anchor (real master):
Try the latest beta please. Go to Glyphs > Preferences > Updates, activate both checkboxes and press the Update button.
I don’t do betas. I’ll wait for the non-beta 
