Glyph browser related issues

[Ralf_Maeder]

Recently I bought some beautiful commercial vintage fonts. The one that I like most has a lot of extra glyphs with many different versions of the same letters where the artist added beautiful swirls around the letters. When I started to make use of the font I used the Affinity Glyph Browser. I am observing several issues with Affinity (Designer and Publisher the same): After having changed a letter with the glyph browser and deselecting the text, then selecting it once more, the glyph browser stays empty, as if it is not updating or having another trouble with the font. Performance of the Affinity application suddenly may decrease and even freeze for more than 30 seconds.

Also another permanent issue is that the glyph browser does not display the whole character if, like in this case, the glyph is much larger than the normal letter, making the selection of the correct glyph a trial and error endevour.

I wonder if other users are noticing also bad performance issues or an empty glyph browser when changing glyphs or maybe just with some fonts or font types? Maybe one font type is preferable because it works better with Affinity applications, like Truetype versus Opentype font?

Maybe some of you who need to access glyphs have found third party Glyph browser applications to be more useful or stable (Windows 10) ?

[Hilltop]

4 hours ago, Ralf_Maeder said:

After having changed a letter with the glyph browser and deselecting the text, then selecting it once more, the glyph browser stays empty, as if it is not updating or having another trouble with the font. Performance of the Affinity application suddenly may decrease and even freeze for more than 30 seconds.

Also another permanent issue is that the glyph browser does not display the whole character if, like in this case, the glyph is much larger than the normal letter, making the selection of the correct glyph a trial and error endevour.

 

As far as your first point is concerned, I don't quite get what you mean by 'the glyph browser stays empty". 

With regards to the glyph browser not showing the complete character when it is too large, I notice this as well. Indeed, trying to get the right glyph is quite a hit and miss in those cases. 

[Ralf_Maeder]

On 3/8/2020 at 4:34 PM, Hilltop said:

As far as your first point is concerned, I don't quite get what you mean by 'the glyph browser stays empty". 

With regards to the glyph browser not showing the complete character when it is too large, I notice this as well. Indeed, trying to get the right glyph is quite a hit and miss in those cases. 

When working with the Glyph browser, selecting a letter, changing it with the glyph browser, then deselecting it and selecting another letter, it happens to me often that the Glyph browser won't show any letters at all. When this happens, I have to close the application and start it once more. I suppose some issue either with the font, with Affinity, or some issue with my Windows 10 system. The font is a commercial one.

[Hilltop]

7 hours ago, Ralf_Maeder said:

When working with the Glyph browser, selecting a letter, changing it with the glyph browser, then deselecting it and selecting another letter, it happens to me often that the Glyph browser won't show any letters at all. When this happens, I have to close the application and start it once more. I suppose some issue either with the font, with Affinity, or some issue with my Windows 10 system. The font is a commercial one.

I don't see that behavior in my setup but it might be something for the devs to look into. 

[Ralf_Maeder]

I couldn't solve the issue with my extremely unstable Affinity Glyph Browser. Tried a few alternatives and found best the Character Map UWD in the Microsoft Store.
Sure, it requires some additional steps in order to get rid of any formatting (pasting the chosen glyph to notepad, selecting it in notepad, copying, pasting the glyph in Affinity) but Affinity won't lag or freeze, which is the main point.

 

[Groovecrafter]

Hi Guys! 

I have a different problem concerning opentype features. I'm using the font Hermann, that has all features you can dream of. My problem is that word-ending letters are automatically changed to swash alternates, see attachment. It never occurred in Indesign and it's a bit annoying. 

I really hope you can fix this. Thanks for your efforts! 

[MikeW]

Maybe your font is using contextual alternates for word endings. It can also be controlled using the fina feature.

[A_B_C]

I don’t have that particular typeface, but it seems to include the fina feature, so it’s likely that Mike is right. Check under Text > Show Typography whether you can turn it off. According to the standard, the fina feature shouldn’t be used in Latin text. There are other ways to do these kinds of ornamentation. But it’s a hack that’s seen from time to time. 😀

[Groovecrafter]

16 hours ago, A_B_C said:

I don’t have that particular typeface, but it seems to include the fina feature, so it’s likely that Mike is right. Check under Text > Show Typography whether you can turn it off. According to the standard, the fina feature shouldn’t be used in Latin text. There are other ways to do these kinds of ornamentation. But it’s a hack that’s seen from time to time. 😀

Unfortunately there's no option for that. This fina feature does not show in the Typography panel. So it means, at the moment, I'm not able to use this font in Publisher, which is not so good. 

Anyway, the possibility to turn on and off stylistic sets and alternates is not a bad idea, but I still should be able to change each character as I wish. It works for other fonts, but I can't turn off these "terminal forms" for Hermann. I think, this should be fixed somehow. 

Thanks! 

[MikeW]

2 hours ago, Groovecrafter said:

Unfortunately there's no option for that. This fina feature does not show in the Typography panel. So it means, at the moment, I'm not able to use this font in Publisher, which is not so good. ...

Here's a font that uses init, medi, fina features. According to the OT Spec, these should be enabled by default--but they are specifically meant for Arabic, etc., fonts. When used in Latin fonts AND are on by default, it leads to this issue because of being on.

The font author uses all three of these features--the swashes with hearts at their ends. This creates quite a mess.

 

At the bottom of the Typography panel, see the Hide irrelevant features checkbox? Check it.

This is what I now see for this font:

 

And if I uncheck all three:

If I opted to only unckeck Medial (medi) forms:

 

[Groovecrafter]

It's really weird! Of course I found the "Hide irrelevant" checkbox, but couldn't see the Positional section. I tried again, and now I can see different features in the Typography panel. And it's there!!! 😄 I already gave it up, but you made me second-check. Thanks Mike, you made my day!

I love y'all! 

Augusztina 

[MikeW]

Great news!

You're welcome. 

[A_B_C]

I would strongly suggest that init, medi, fina should be disabled for Latin text by default in Publisher. Font designers shouldn’t be encouraged to use these features other than for scripts they were meant to be used for. They should use calt or stylistic sets. As you rightly pointed out, Mike (your example is great!), the improper implementation of these features in Latin fonts will often create a terrible mess. 😕

[MikeW]

Up until 2016, I believe, the spec didn't make a distinction in applicable scripts. John Hudson got the spec changed to the intended usage at that time. But he also then stated this would open the spec to then specify same features specifically for Latin scripts. Though he was the author of the spec and pushed for the revision, he has never (to my knowledge) made such a proposal. 

A new specification for these 3 features for Latin text is redundant. I proposed/argued that this should happen at the application level and the originating application should make use of the lang tags as to whether these features are on/off by default. That would be the best approach. 

I also suggested that APub use the lang tag to do this as it has to be read anyway. That didn't happen. 

 

[kenmcd]

3 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

I would strongly suggest that init, medi, fina should be disabled for Latin text by default in Publisher. Font designers shouldn’t be encouraged to use these features other than for scripts they were meant to be used for. They should use calt or stylistic sets. As you rightly pointed out, Mike (your example is great!), the improper implementation of these features in Latin fonts will often create a terrible mess. 😕

That would break many, many fonts.
The OpenType guidelines were amended in 2016 (IIRC) to clarify that those features should apply only to certain non-Latin scripts.
So font designers had many, many years to create fonts using those features.
This can be confirmed using the MyFonts advanced search to search for those OpenType features. Lots of results - from just one source.

[MikeW]

Btw, I would also suggest that if an ot feature is turned on, default or otherwise, it shouldn't take a check box to enable the user to find it.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Btw, I would also suggest that if an ot feature is turned on, default or otherwise, it shouldn't take a check box to enable the user to find it.

I'm not sure I have any fonts that support init, medi, and fina, so I can't easily check. But I'm unclear why it requires a checkbox to see that they exist. Aren't all the typography options shown in that dialog, and it's just a matter of scrolling to find them?

[MikeW]

26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

...Aren't all the typography options shown in that dialog, and it's just a matter of scrolling to find them?

No.

[A_B_C]

1 hour ago, LibreTraining said:

That would break many, many fonts.

Why would it “break” a font if you disable an OpenType feature on the application level? I know that many fonts use the init, medi, fina features for Latin scripts too, but I am not aware that any font would cease functioning, if that feature would be disabled by default. In Latin script contexts, the init, medi, fina features are generally used for invoking decorations. Even Latin connected script fonts should work perfectly well with these features disabled in Affinity Publisher.

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

A new specification for these 3 features for Latin text is redundant.

I never spoke of amending the specification. If you read my earlier post again, Mike, you will see that I said these features “should be disabled by default in Publisher,” that is, on the application level, precisely as you seemed to have in mind yourself. And of course, as we have scripts differentiation in Publisher, your suggestion would be the way to go, in my opinion.

(Maybe you were just reporting your discussion with John Hudson back in 2016. I’m not entirely clear about that. However, in that case, I am fully d’accord with your point of view.)

[MikeW]

46 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

...(Maybe you were just reporting your discussion with John Hudson back in 2016. I’m not entirely clear about that. ...)

Sorry. Yes, I argued with a few people.