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All glyphs not showing as options


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I'm trying to create a design using Grrovy Script - Retro Font which has a bunch of glyphs for each letter. However, in Designer, i'm not getting any of those glyphs, just the standard characters. I use this font in other applications without any trouble. I've tried switching the Glyph Browser from Glyphs, to Unicode, to Unicode Plus Alternates and it makes no difference. Can anyone tell me how I can find the rest of my glyphs? 

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Thanks for the screen-grabs.

If the font you are using is this one https://elements.envato.com/groovy-retro-font-8M4TS9R then that doesn’t look like a ‘simple’ font so I don’t know how well it will work in the Affinity applications, and I don’t have an envato log-in to download and test it myself.

Someone else should be able to though so I’ll leave it to someone who can help better than me.

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27 minutes ago, ShenaJ said:

I didn't link it here because I wasn't sure that was allowed.

It’s not OK to share commercial font files, but it’s always OK to link to third-party resources so that other forum users can see exactly what you’re working with.

Hendra Pratama’s ‘Groovy’ typeface offers Swashes, Ligatures, Contextual Alternates, Stylistic Alternates and Stylistic Sets. Have you tried switching on the various OpenType features instead of accessing the glyphs directly via the Glyph Browser?

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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@Alfred thank you for that info, I figured it was better to err on the side of caution. 

 

As far as turning on OpenType features, I'm not sure how to do that, can you explain further. I'm trying hard to switch away from Illustrator and all that was just automatic there.

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Go to the Typography section of the Character panel to choose any of the supported OpenType features.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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29 minutes ago, ShenaJ said:

@Alfred thank you! I was able to find them. Takes a bit more thought, but happ to get it to work!

That’s great news, @ShenaJ! Thanks for the update. :)

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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14 minutes ago, lacerto said:

This font made me also wonder whether certain typographic features like "Contextual Alternates" and "Stylistic Alternates" (and the combination of both), and even Stylistic Sets, are kinds of presets designed to be used with all the characters using the same font (instead of requiring character-wise selection of alternatives, which there can be over 20 for certain characters)?

Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenType feature scripting! It’s possible to define classes of characters and then specify how members of those classes should (or shouldn’t!) be affected when a particular OpenType feature is switched on.

AFDKO (Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType): OpenType™ Feature File Specification

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Some of the "features" are actually OpenType (OT) features and some are constructions by the application. For example there is no All Caps feature in OT.

5 hours ago, lacerto said:

But as the Character panel has a button labelled as "Character Variants"...

image.png.5f3047a44ea008c7daa0b15e223c6333.png

...I wonder if this is something that is intended to show alternatives for single characters in a separate window (and in bigger size), but just has not been implemented yet? (I could not find a way to make this feature working with any of the fonts that I tested.)

Character Variants (cvNN) is an actual OT feature which Affinity does support when it is actually present. To test take a look at the fonts Charis SIL and Junicode. They both have OT Character Variants. ID does not support cvNN at all (there is an add-on available which does).

5 hours ago, lacerto said:

But I began to wonder this because Adobe and Affinity apps show available stylistic sets quite differently, Adobe apps (including Photoshop 2024) and CorelDRAW showing all available stylistic variations only in context of glyph selection

Affinity only shows the actual OT feature Access All Alternates (aalt) if it actually exists in the font. Adopey apps construct this (whether it actually exists or not in OT) and that is what is displayed in the alternates pop-up. 

Groovy Script actually has an aalt feature and the font developer actually created it manually (more advanced font editors can create it automatically). Pluses and minuses - Automatically may create duplicates and odd exceptions - Manually may miss alternates but could also be a well thought-out and better.

It appears there is a newer version of the font with more features than the version I have (v1.000).

Regarding the Stylistic Sets (ssNN) - it appears the newer font may have multiple alternates on the ssNN (like on cvNN). Junicode 2 has started doing this. Because they have more than ss01-ss20 (and do not want to exceed ss20). Some apps will work all the way up to ss99 (APub, ID, LibreOffice), and some fonts will use up to ss99. And some apps will only display up to ss20 (Word). And some do not work with the ssNN variants. Since ID does not support OT Character Variants at all, I assume it also may not support variants in Stylistic Sets.

And on and on...

Would have to see the newer font to determine exactly what is happening.

 

Additional thoughts...

- applying some OT features will block other OT features (depends on the order inside the font)

- fonts may have errors/bugs in the OT features. The more complex the font, the more likely there are issues. 

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7 hours ago, lacerto said:

But as the Character panel has a button labelled as "Character Variants"...

image.png.5f3047a44ea008c7daa0b15e223c6333.png

...I wonder if this is something that is intended to show alternatives for single characters in a separate window (and in bigger size), but just has not been implemented yet? (I could not find a way to make this feature working with any of the fonts that I tested.)

If you try that button with Charis SIL or Junicode you get a display like the one you showed:

image.png.2fb5c37be9ef1afd8700a64b461ca1bf.png

It feels odd that the button is not highlighted as being active, until after I click on it, so there's no way to be sure if it will do anything before you click.

 

-- Walt
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3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It feels odd that the button is not highlighted as being active, until after I click on it, so there's no way to be sure if it will do anything before you click.

Should be grayed-out and do nothing if there are no Character Variants. And as you say, be highlighted when there are.

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