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Variable Font Support


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3 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I would try it and just select the first option, i.e., 'Clear User Data' to see if that fixes the issue...

I'm actually struggling to find any, to be honest...

Go to google fonts, and filter for Variable fonts. Hundreds of them.

 

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I'm using a typeface called Kayak (variable). There's one parameter (axis) you can play with (weight) and that's it. However, no option to expose any other axes.

I've checked and am using .2449 on Mac Sonoma 14.2.1.

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1 minute ago, Affinity-Inspiration said:

Go to google fonts, and filter for Variable fonts. Hundreds of them.

What I'm looking for is variable fonts that by default have hidden axes, like Roboto Flex does.

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Just now, RNKLN said:

I'm using a typeface called Kayak (variable). There's one parameter (axis) you can play with (weight) and that's it. However, no option to expose any other axes.

I've checked and am using .2449 on Mac Sonoma 14.2.1.

Maybe if there aren’t any other axes, the toggle stays off. Which makes sense.

 

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1 minute ago, Affinity-Inspiration said:

Maybe if there aren’t any other axes, the toggle stays off. Which makes sense.

Yes, it certainly makes sense. I thought however that the switch was meant to open axes which don't make sense for the particular font. I may have misunderstood.

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4 minutes ago, Affinity-Inspiration said:

Go to google fonts, and filter for Variable fonts. Hundreds of them.

There are none that I've found that have hidden axes other than Roboto Flex. Google Fonts displays the number of axes, the vast majority only include one or two of the 'registered axes' no hidden ones...

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2 minutes ago, RNKLN said:

I thought however that the switch was meant to open axes which don't make sense for the particular font.

No. Axes that "don't make sense" would not be in the font at all. The hidden axes are ones the font designer included, but decided not to expose to the user of the font for whatever reason.

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3 minutes ago, RNKLN said:

Yes, it certainly makes sense. I thought however that the switch was meant to open axes which don't make sense for the particular font. I may have misunderstood.

Kayak only has one axis, weight, so there are no hidden axes to display and hence no toggle...

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18 minutes ago, Hangman said:

There are none that I've found that have hidden axes other than Roboto Flex.

I have about 20 variable font families installed, and only Roboto Flex has hidden axes.

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18 minutes ago, Hangman said:

There are none that I've found that have hidden axes other than Roboto Flex. Google Fonts displays the number of axes, the vast majority only include one or two of the 'registered axes' no hidden ones...

You mean we just had 3 pages of discussion on where and how the hidden axis control should be placed for just one font? 🙂 

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OK, now I'm really losing my mind about this. I (finally!) got all 3 Beta apps updated to .2449 on my old iPad & created new text documents in each of them with a text object using Roboto Flex. But I cannot for the life of me figure out where to show the axes options in the Text Studio, assuming that is where it should be. I can select any of the presets but beyond that I'm stuck on what to tap to show the axes sliders.

Can someone tell me where that is hiding? I'm using iPadOS version 16.6.1 if that makes any difference (& I can't install the later 17.x version because my iPad only has 32 GB of RAM & that is not enough room for the update.

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3 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

You mean we just had 3 pages of discussion on where and how the hidden axis control should be placed for just one font? 🙂 

There are probably others but they may be ones that you have to buy & thus are not among the Google fonts or from other free font sources.

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49 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I would try it and just select the first option, i.e., 'Clear User Data' to see if that fixes the issue...

I don't have a 'Clear User Data' item. My first one is 'Clear User Defaults,' if that is what you mean.

Anyway, I thried that on the Photo beta & aside from deleting things I did not want deleted (grrrr!) it had no effect. Still have 13 axes & no show hidden option. ☹️

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Apologies, yes, I did mean 'Clear User Defaults' but if that hasn't worked then I can only assume the issue somehow relates to Catalina...

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17 hours ago, benam said:

Maybe there could be a checkbox in the settings to enable the "Show Hidden Axes" checkbox?
At least this way the user would be able to be shown that this is a 'use at your own risk' option and they can then turn it on and off in the menu.

I partially agree with this - it does make sense that it could be more appropriately placed in settings/preferences with a warning next to it - but in my mind, settings/preferences would be something to use when you are going to make a change long-term, not something you might toggle temporarily and then switch back, as should really be the case here.

One way around this might be to have the option in settings/preferences instead hide/show the checkbox/switch, so instead of directly showing the hidden axes, it would instead show the toggle to show the hidden axis.  That way there can still be a warning about the purpose of the option (and about why those axes may have been hidden in the first place) next to the option in settings/preferences that a user would see before enabling the feature, but the controls for using the feature would still be kept relatively clean.

Another way to handle this might have been to move the checkbox to a popup that appears when a gear icon or something is clicked, and place the warning in the popup.  This would have made more sense if the variable axes were in the Typography panel as I had previously suggested, but may not work quite as well logistically with them already being in a popup themselves.

 

 

It would also be nice if the hidden axes, when shown, were marked somehow to distinguish them from the normal ones - maybe make the labels of the hidden ones red or blue or something?

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The only font I've found to date, in addition to Roboto Flex, that is supposed to have a hidden axis is 'Pappardelle' (a trial version is available here). The 'X Opaque' axis should be hidden but this is shown by default in Affinity apps so I'm unsure whether or not there is a hidden flag on the font or not...

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33 minutes ago, Hangman said:

The only font I've found to date, in addition to Roboto Flex, that is supposed to have a hidden axis is 'Pappardelle' (a trial version is available here). The 'X Opaque' axis should be hidden but this is shown by default in Affinity apps so I'm unsure whether or not there is a hidden flag on the font or not...

There’s a ‘Show/hide hidden axes’ button on the Axis-Praxis page for Pappardelle:

https://www.axis-praxis.org/specimens/pappardelle

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1 minute ago, Alfred said:

There’s a ‘Show/hide hidden axes’ button on the Axis-Praxis page for Pappardelle:

That's what I was referring to but when the font is loaded in Affinity apps there is no 'Show Hidden Axis' option, both variables are shown by default...

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3 minutes ago, Hangman said:

That's what I was referring to but when the font is loaded in Affinity apps there is no 'Show Hidden Axis' option, both variables are shown by default...

Indeed they are, and that behaviour doesn’t seem correct. From the page I linked to in my previous post:

Quote

Pappardelle has a contrast variation axis (tagged “CTST”), and a hidden X Opaque axis (tagged “XOPQ”) that is not intended for user interaction.

 

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1 minute ago, Alfred said:

Indeed they are, and that behaviour doesn’t seem correct. From the page I linked to in my previous post:

Correct, perhaps someone could take a quick look to see whether or not the 'X Opague' Axis is flagged as hidden in the font itself...

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46 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Correct, perhaps someone could take a quick look to see whether or not the 'X Opague' Axis is flagged as hidden in the font itself...

Both XOPQ and CTST axes are not hidden in the trial font Pappardelle-VF.ttf

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5 minutes ago, Floor said:

Both XOPQ and CTST axes are not hidden in the trial font Pappardelle-VF.ttf

Thanks for confirming and it makes sense based on how it is shown in the Affinity apps...

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