Replacing Alternates doesn't work

#1

Hello,
after I had to improve an alternate Glyph i have to state, that replacing the older version (and preserving it’s metrics) is not possible.
Obviously only standard glyphs can be replaced.

So this is my suggestion to improve in a future version of fontself maker.
Thääänks in advance! :slight_smile:

Kindly Greetings
Hybi

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#2

Heu @Hybi
Super thanks for this feedback! Gonna check and fix that.

Best.

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#3

Hi Mohamed and all who might be interested,
there’s a cute little workaround for this issue (just testet).

  1. Rename the old alternate to an unused letter (let’s say the “π”).
    It will become a quite normal character.

  2. Now replace it by the new alternate, by naming this new one “π”.

  3. Rename this new one back to the primary letter.
    You will be asked “replace or alternate?”
    You know what to do :grin:

Have a great weekend and a nice slip to the new year!

Friendly greetz
Hybi

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#4

Nice catch @Hybi !

Last time I answered too quickly and I thought it was a bug as I was working on multiple bugs :sweat:.
But in fact, it’s a feature :wink: At last for now…
Because there is no easy way to let user replace an alternate as it has not any dedicated name or unicode.

So the solution you propose is a good one !!

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#5

Hi Mohamed,

well, at least, there is a work-aroud. :slight_smile:

But, what I don’t understand: Creating an alternate is possible, though the lack of dedicated name or unicode.
So, if I try to replace a charakter having an alternate, the app should be able to detect this and offer me to choose if I want to replace the original letter or the alternate.

Yes, I’m not a programmer.
Means, what sounds easy for me is not necessarily easy to code :slight_smile:

But hey, a little incitation never did harm anybody :wink:

Friendly greetz
Hybi

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#6

Going to have to give your work around a test :smile:

The ability to replace alternates would be really useful, especially when crating a new weight. I’m going to be replacing all the glyphs so as to keep the metrics and give myself a solid base to just tweak things slightly. And I’ve got alternatives for a lot of foreign characters/accent characters. The ability to replace alternates would be great. I’m assuming that could be done as FontSelf will recognize that an alternate exists for a given character/glyph so the replace feature should then also recognize that…like @Hybi obviously im no programmer but it seems like it should be feasible :smiley:

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#7

Thanks! Your creative workaround really saved me a lot of time!

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