Stylistic Alternates does not work

[Al Grasso]

While testing a new font with Open Type features I noted that the Stylistic Alternates does not work correctly. Out of a chain of 6 substitutions only the first one is replaced. For this feature I would expect a dialog box to open up and show the set of stylistic alternates available from the font GSUB table.

Please amend at your earliest convenience.

 

[Lee D]

Hi Al Grasso,

 

Can you let me know which font you're testing and which program are you using and I'll do some testing.

 

Thanks

[Al Grasso]

The font I use is designed by myself and has many Open Type features.The stylistics alternates defined in my font work in Publisher both 2010 and 2013 releases.Both version contain the Stylistic Alternates feature.  Regarding the test program: I am using Affinity Designer, which I bought mainly for the attractive OT feature palette but I was surprised to see that the SA did not work.

 

I cannot provide my font because it is a big font set but if you need one I can quickly make one up for you with a SA GSUB table so that you can test the stylistics alternates. The stylistics sets, ligatures and other features seem to work. I can't remember though if the swash features were working.

 

Let me know.

[Dave Harris]

Currently we don't have any UI to access all the alternates. To be honest, I think it got overlooked because it really needs to be a bit special, done on a per-glyph basis where the rest can reasonable work on a per-font basis. I'll add it to the list of things to do. It's probably our one big weakness in OpenType support.

[Al Grasso]

I don't think that it is much different from the stylistic sets 1 to 20. The GSUB table is much the same. What you need to do is to have the toggle button on the Typography Palette to open up a dialogue box which lists the glyphs defined in the SA table. The stylistic sets do the same, I am wondering now if they do the same in Affinity Designer. In Word for Mac 2011 when you toggle the SS button a dialog box open up showing all the available stylistic sets defined in that font. So for the Stylistics Alternates you have to do the same thing but refer to a different look up table to bring out the glyphs defined in that specific SA table.

[Dave Harris]

Ah; there's a further confusion. There are two families of Stylistic Alternatives. One uses a single tag, 'salt', with a parameter. That's the one we currently provide, and we don't have any UI to set the parameter. The other uses a range of tags, 'sa01', 'sa02' and so forth, and we don't provide that one at all. In either case the back-end code that would implement them is in place, so it's just UI work.

 

Also, we don't have the popup window that lists the glyphs that would result for a given text selection. For Stylistic Sets, which we do support, we just provide a checkbox for each tag the font supports with no preview.

[Al Grasso]

It seems to me that you do not have a full understanding yet of the many OT features, which is not surprising as there are so many of them.

Stylistics Sets can be from 1 to 20. How you display them is a decision you make when you develop your App. In this case you have chosen to lists the heading and allow the user to know what is in each set. A daunting task for any user and makes the feature very unattractive. Using toggle switches to enable/disable the feature is poor design.

 

I am not aware of "sa01", "sa02" etc as you quoted. I think you might be a bit confused by the many variations of tables available. So far as I know there is only one GSUB table for Stylistic Alternates and you can choose to make it for single substitutions or multiple substitutions.This table is known as "salt" and there is only 1. I admit I have not tried to see what happens if I duplicate with another salt 2, salt 3, etc. But, thinking about it, there is no need to duplicate this table as you can list on the same table n-substitutions for each letter or number or punctuation you may want to create alternates for. So one table is enough.

 

What you are implementing in your Stylistic Alternate toggle switch, is the single substitution which is useless. The only way you can make this salt feature useful is to do it the way I am recommending which is the way those typo geniuses of Microsoft has implemented it. Your solution is amateurish not professional. So please change it. Look at Publisher 2010 or 2013.

 

The same comment applies to Affinity Photo, same function and same limitations. I have just tested it a few minutes ago.

The change is quite simple to make.

 

I also advise you to change the options in stylistic sets else users will not find it useful at all. You need to provide a dialog box which shows the corresponding style in the stylistic sets. Imagine you are using the feature and want to choose 1 of the 20 styles embedded in the font. Look at Word for Mac 2011 and see how they implemented the Stylistic Sets 1 to 20 properly and professionally. 

[Dave Harris]

The confusion is mostly me trying to figure out what you are doing with your font. You said your Stylistic Alternates were implemented in a similar way to Stylistic Sets. Stylistic Sets are a group of features in the form 'ss01', 'ss02' etc, so it sounded like you were using 'sa01', 'sa02' etc. If you're not, and are just using the single feature 'salt' with a selection parameter, that's fine.

 

We're in the process of revamping character formatting, and this is one of the areas we're going to improve. If you would like to send us an example font to test with, that'll help make sure we're on the same page.

 

Photo and Designer are built on the same code base, and in a case like this where both have the same features, they'll work in the same way.

[gardencat]

I have what I think is a related question, but I don't have the indepth computer programing knowledge that you guys seem to and don't really understand your posts above.

 

I just want to know at present, if I am using a font with open type features, can I go in on a single character and select an alternate form for that character as I can now in Illustrator? Watching your video it seemed almost as if I have to select alternates as a group,and then have them in effect for the whole of the type, rather than just applying them on a where I want, when I want, basis.

[Al Grasso]

Unfortunately with the current offering in the Affinity series you are not able to do just that. Illustrator can do that and much more because it was designed properly and is the reference App that all others try to emulate. The only program that can do that for you now is Publisher 2010 or 2013. But with a program change the Affinity series could do the same. But I fear that this issue is not regarded as a high priority feature. Indeed, I am becoming critical of Serif's offering in this series. Also, I have learnt that the Apple Store is primarily a source of inferior software. It sounds good but it leaves you disappointed and out of pocket! Sorry guys at Serif but I think this is largely true. 

[Dave Harris]

I just want to know at present, if I am using a font with open type features, can I go in on a single character and select an alternate form for that character as I can now in Illustrator? Watching your video it seemed almost as if I have to select alternates as a group,and then have them in effect for the whole of the type, rather than just applying them on a where I want, when I want, basis.

Yes, you can. These attributes are applied on a per-character basis, the same as font and pointsize, not per-object or per-layer.

 

In this thread Al Grasso has been talking about something else; namely when an attribute has a parameter, where and how that parameter is set, not what range of text the setting applies to. And for the record, typography is a high priority for us. We already offer features in this area that no other apps do, and we take on board criticism and will continue to improve in this area over time.

[Al Grasso]

Let me clarify how this feature works currently in the Affinity Series and how it should work.

 

If the font chosen is type OT and suitable tables are present in the font set for stylistic alternates then Affinity works by selecting one particular letter that the user wants to change, by highlighting it, and then, by pressing the Stylistic Alternates button, that letter is replaced with one only other letter.

This, however, is not how this feature should work. The proper function is that ticking the SA button it should open up a dialog box and provide a list of the alternate letters that are available for that particular selected letter.

 

I just retried it with my font, which contains six different styles of the capital letter L, to mention just one. Clicking the Stylistic Button, after selecting the letter L in the text I am writing, I get a substitution of the first letter L I coded in my table, the other 5 are ignored and I am given no choice to sequence through the whole set.

 

This is not how this feature should work. Upon ticking the SA button for the letter L, as I the user feel like I want a different style, on the basis of "when I want and where I want" Affinity should open up a dialog showing the six, to stay with the example quoted earlier, variations of the letter L. Then I choose one of those six.

 

Regarding the Stylistic Sets, they work fine. My only criticism is that, again, ticking, say SS1, should open up a window that shows me what style set is coded in SS1, etc. You do this correctly in DrawPlus for Windows where you show both the row SSx and, at the same time, display what kind of style is embedded in that choice of SSx.

 

That is all. Otherwise I agree that your OT feature Palette is one of the best I  have seen so far. Making these two corrections would not require a long development time. As it stands, though, the OT feature palette is not very useable hence I have to test either in Word for Mac which has a good set of Typography features, bar the salt table and Swash table, or if I want to test these two tables I have to go to Publisher for Windows. I got excited  with Affinity Designer and Photo because of the OT palette. Finally, I thought, I can test all the features with one program! And that is why I am urging you to hurry up and make these changes!

 

I agree with your clarification: "These attributes are applied on a per-character basis, the same as font and pointsize, not per-object or per-layer." Obviously if you select, SS1, by ticking it, before you start writing text, then that selected SS1 style will be applied as the default style until SS1 is unticked and then the default style of that OT character set, becomes active, again. This will be relevant for Publisher more than for Designer and Photo.

[gardencat]

Thanks for the responses...so I understand now that I can change just one character in the middle of a word to an alternative but I will not get the complete  list of alternatives to chose from, even if my font does include multiple alternates, as I do now in Illustrator.

[gardencat]

Sorry repeat.

[evtonic3]

Sounds like Al Grasso wants to tell you how to develop your app. Let him come to work for you Serif.  :lol:  :lol:

[Al Grasso]

I am afraid I need to report that the Stylistic Sets are not working correctly. As they are now they are not mutually exclusive. I loaded a font with six tables of stylistic sets and although I can choose each set individually when pressing the corresponding radio button, one is inclined to tick the other radio buttons, for the reasons I mentioned in an earlier post, and the result is somewhat chaotic. Please look at MS Word for Mac 2011 to see the correct implementation of this feature. They need to be mutually exclusive and be able to provide either single letter substitution or whole paragraph style substitution. See the attached files. Please amend these features at your earliest convenience. The panel in Word can be scrolled up to SS20.

[Dave Harris]

So far as I can tell, they are working correctly. I don't think stylistic sets are required to be mutually exclusive. See, for example, https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_pt.htm#ssxx. It does not mention them being mutually exclusive there, and further it says,

Font developers may choose to map only from default forms to variants for each stylistic set, or may choose to map between all stylistic sets in each feature, depending on intended user experience. For example, feature 'ss03' might contain lookups mapping variant glyphs from 'ss01' and 'sso2' to corresponding variants in 'ss03', in addition to mapping from default forms.

In other words, if you enable both 'ss01' and 'ss03', then a default form may be mapped to one glyph by 'ss01' and then to a second glyph by 'ss03'. If they were mutually exclusive, then only default forms would need to be mapped. So, according to the specification they are not mutually exclusive, and we would be remiss not to allow users to enable several at once.

 

We also support up to 'ss20'. We only show the ones that the font actually defines, and if they are all defined they will all be supported. You can enable them either single letter or entire paragraph, or anything in between. The only thing we're missing is some kind of preview, which we plan to add in due course.

[Al Grasso]

What you say is correct. However, it seems that even Microsoft has implemented it in the mutually exclusive format. At least that is how it works in Word for Mac 2011 and Publisher (for Windows) 2010 & 2013 versions. I suggest you try it out. I am preparing a font set with the key OT GSUB tables so that you can test them out.

 

I know your programs can display up to SS20 but only 6 are shown because I only created 6 SS tables. The point is that the MS App solution   is very practical as it displays the first six, in line with my table, and then displays the lower 14 as the default glyph. As it stands these features in MS Word or Publisher are working correctly and are also user friendly. Yours look the best and the most complete but requires more work to be done to make them practical and useful.

 

Bear also in mind that when the OT feature specifications were written there were hardly any applications that could use them or even compile the GSUB or GPOS tables for font creation. Then Microsoft released Microsoft Volt to generate OT features. In short, the provisions in the specifications have to be referenced to what they have implemented in their own Apps. For example, my investigations into SS and Salt show that they both do the same thing except that in SS the table is arranged as a column vector arrangement of glyphs whereas in the Salt table the arrangement seems to follow an X-Y matrix. I have tried different permutations in Publisher, as it provides both SS and Salt tables, and I can achieve the exact same functional result. In the end I will decide to use the SS option as that is available in Word for Mac, whereas Stylistic Alternates is only available in Publisher for Windows. I was attracted to the Affinity series because it seemed that your set of OT features was more advanced. As it stands I cannot use it whereas I can use Word for Mac and Publisher is a very user friendly way, which is the way these advanced typography features will have to work for ordinary users. I have even arrived at the conclusions that for the Western European languages all you need is a Salt table, ligatures, old style and proportional numbers and kerning. The rest is of doubtful use. 

 

Please bear in mind that I am aware that the best and most complete OT features are to be found in the Adobe Apps and Quark Express App, but I have not had experience with them hence it could be that my judgement is not totally correct as it is based on the MS Apps I quoted above and how they have implemented their typography features in those two Apps. Apple also does not do a good job in implementing OT features in Pages hence there is a real shortage of good Apps for testing OT features during font development. You will be releasing Affinity Publisher later on hence I recommend that you review these OT features in time for that release.

[Dave Harris]

What you say is correct. However, it seems that even Microsoft has implemented it in the mutually exclusive format.

So, MS Word has got it wrong. They did not follow the specification on their own website. I am not going to copy their mistake.

 

I know your programs can display up to SS20 but only 6 are shown because I only created 6 SS tables. The point is that the MS App solution   is very practical as it displays the first six, in line with my table, and then displays the lower 14 as the default glyph.

Why do you need to see the default glyph 14 times?

 

There are lots of features in OpenType, many of which are rarely supported. If we listed all the unsupported ones, the UI would become cluttered and it would be hard to find the things that did work. So I think hiding Stylistic Sets that the font doesn't provide is a good, even necessary thing.

 

I was attracted to the Affinity series because it seemed that your set of OT features was more advanced. As it stands I cannot use it

Why can't you use it? What can you do with Stylistic Sets in MS Word that you can't do in Affinity Publisher? As far as I can tell, the differences are (a) we don't do previews, so you have to click on the checkbox to see the effect, and ( B) we don't make them mutually exclusive, which has the benefit that you can have several enabled at once if you want, and the drawback that if you don't want that you have to switch off the old one when switching on a new one. Neither difference should make them unusable. We do plan to do something about the previews in due course.

[Dave Harris]

In today's Customer Beta (1.3.5.7), the Typography panel has been improve to show all available Stylistic Alternates (and Access All Alternates, Swashes and a few others). Also, it the options it offers are now specific to the characters currently selected, and there is a preview of what the alternates look like. The Customer Beta is available to those who have the full Mac App Store version installed, from here.