color-able guide line

While browsing the hidden gems, I came across a sight I found quite peculiar: Buckaroo, a nice design by FS master funk_king, with only a 4.87 balanced rating across 30 (!) votes. I went to it to see what the issue was, but to my surprise, there was none that I could find. I voted it a 10, but the rating only went up to 4.91. I then went to its balanced ratings page, where I found that FS claims that it has a 4.65 average rating, despite having 13 tens, 12 others of six or more, and only 4 votes of two or one. I calculated the mean by hand (well, with a calculator) and came up with ~8.23 as what I would call the "average rating". So what's going on here?

(excuse me, I meant the Vote Breakdown page... A comment-editing feature would be nice, as long as there's a way to view previous versions of the comment :-) )

Also, I made a mathematical error: the mean of the 31 ratings is ~7.55, not ~8.23. Still a far cry from ~4.65 though!

Thanks @ETH I'll look into it

I am currently correcting the ratings for all FontStructions. This particular case is a special one. The average rating and weighted rating are actually accurate, the number of votes displayed and their values are not.

Seems that for me the font editor is bugged a the moment. uppon opening a project I get a fully filled grid canvas.

Am I the only one who's having this, or anyone got any clues whats wrong?

Ah. Looks like a firefox bug …

Yea that was what I thought as well. When I resize the browser window manually the editor gets back to normal.

I am now reinstalling all browser runtime apps such as flash.

Fixed now.

Yeah, I see, thanks boss!

There should be a way to define alternates (oldstyle, tabular, Stylistic sets 1-20, etc.)

Wishlist -#-possibility while in Fontstructor preview, to type 'unicode names' with 1 or more letters (in sets above  MoreLatin) to allow their kerning with other glyphs -#-automatic attachment of a BasicLatin glyph's individually added "'kerning value"' when hand/auto-copying glyphs to other sets , maintaining ratio between the kerned-partner glyph and the diacritically changed BasicLatin glyph (this could automate all "'kerned pairs'" on Latin based glyph bands *i.e.  the BasicLatin LC 'l' with caron followed by 'a' *)

I second Aeolien's suggestions. Anything to help automate or duplicate kerning would be of great benefit, particularly to US/UK keyboard users.

I think the copy to latin accents should copy to latin-A, latin-B, Latin-Add as well, so we wouldn't have to use a lot of time copying and pasting individial letters...

Wishlist: Half-arc bricks, at least for the halfwidth ones.

Why: Apart from the fact that they enable MANY new designs and styles, there is presently no way to invent, whether through stacking or composites or both, any brick that has geometry like these. Many designs achieve curves like this through polygons, but almost none of them have congruent geometry on the inline and outline components at the same time, and those that do are built in a huge scale. These bricks would be useful at almost any scale.

I know this has probably been suggested before, but these bricks really would be useful. Just looking at this diagram makes me get about a dozen different ideas:

Alternately: One half-arc brick in the three different widths. This would still let users rotate and flip the half-arc to complete portions of circles.

@zephram Sounds like a good idea.

Oh yes, it does! ;-)

It would solve the terminals problem in half of my FontStructions...

Mine too... It'd make it easier to fontstruct an X in a circle

Half arc bricks are a cool idea. I've tried building them and the ones I have made have been pretty rough.

I definitely agree with adding the half-arc bricks, for different widths of arc preferably (and don't forget eighth-circle bricks!). Of course, if we had either a "subtract" tool or an "invert" option, these would be a piece of cake :-)

Regarding accents, I'd like to have a feature where the base letters are not only copied to higher ranges, but also "linked"—so that any change in the base letter changes all the accented versions as well. Several times I've decided to make a design change after implmenting accents, and then had to copy the change to every other copy of the letter spread throughout the Unicode ranges. Preferably this feature would also link kerning data as in Aeolien's suggestion, though I understand if this isn't possible...

Thanks for the feedback. Half-arc bricks will be added.

Amazing! Thanks, Rob! :D

@ETHProductions: A subtract tool would be insane!

Insanely impressive and useful, I meant. :D

Are these three enough, or do we need the rotated duplicates?

I can only envision one scenario where the others would be required - when they are put in composites (since compositing always uses the original orientation of the brick). But I also understand the desire not to clutter things up... those three alone would still be of great benefit...

After some more thinking, it does seem like all the possible composites could be done with just those three bricks. I think there's no difference in functionality, only convenience.

Thanks @zephram. Yes I was wondering about composites and transformations too – but I guess you can transform the composite. Let’s start with just the three – hopefully within the next 24 hours.

I went to experiment and think I found a case for adding the other bricks.

Building this shape below is perfectly possible with just one arc brick - but, the transformed one will get distorted in the composite. And, since stacking uses the original orientation of the bricks, it's possible to make this shape, but not to composite it. One can't get that final curve in the bottom right in a way that can be incorporated into complex bricks.

Fortunately, this seems like an uncommon scenario. It's the only one I was unable to solve out of the many I entertained. And, with 2x2 filters, one can still make the 3-brick shape here and use it as if it were a composite, since 2x2 leaves plenty of room for things to overlap.

Adding simple rotated variants, like this, would not help with your scenario right? – You would need also flipped variants(?) – so you would need at least 8 bricks for each kind of half-arc, 24 new bricks in total.

I'm reluctant to add 24 new bricks of this type to the palette. Perhaps just the three. One day we will have composites that respect tranformations, and three will be enough anyway. Input from others welcome on this.

I didn't think that such a simple idea resulted in 24 new bricks. :-D

I would leave it at the three that you first suggested. But composites that respect transformation sounds like an very exciting thing. I would definitely support that!

half-circles also?

@ThinkLogically You can create those using composites, but if they are diagonally split, I don't know know to make the diagonally-split ones...

I have another small brick request if it is not to much asked really.

In a way it's a extention of Zephramsrecent request, but would allow people to tap into a complete new area of letter styles such as insular script. I know this already is possible right now but its very limited and for experienced structors only basically due to the fact that you have to understand composites and filter settings/behaviour pretty good.

And this brick would greatly simply things as well as allowing also to make more sublte to some styles than is possible right now. I attached a example of the brick I would like to request!

But instead like with the previous new bricks I would like to ask for all four rotated orientations on this bricks due to the fact that it is most likely going to be used in composites and situation that have nudging going on, which isn't really the case with the brick zephram requested.

Cheers

Ron

For example it would allow us to make letter like tis.

Hi, Ron, I think it is a good idea, especially working with 1/4- and 1/8-wide letters...

Meant working with letters with 1/4 and 1/8 widths

These 2 suggestions may be a bit far fetched, but they would be handy:
1. Having a split-screen view with one screen being able to have a different filter setting.  Right now making composites in 2x2 is okay, but it's much more intuitive & fast in 1x1.

2. Having an overlay showing which bricks are occupied. Right now, I have to fumble around, finding what bricks are occupied. Maybe adding a grey overlay would be helpful

Also, @Sed4tives, you would have to add the reverse contrast bricks. 

I am aware of this type of construction you explain I guess

Still it lacks the connection to the two tinner segmented bricks

Do you think these bricks can be added? I know I can create the first one, but even with composites and stacking, I cannot create the second brick...

Please add the rest of the Unicode blocks for the Basic Multilingual Plane!!! They already work to make and save in the editor using a modded client-side script. (changing the "blocks" array) Some missing blocks may be really big; but you can always divide it into parts!! I don't think anyone will ever finish like all the CJK Ideographs, but they can be available to those who want to make it- like the top 100 or 250 kanjis for Japanese fonts.

There are also some new small blocks added to Unicode 11 such as Cyrillic Extended C!! 

I mean just, perhaps, to change that array and make it official

I'd want to add the rest of CJK and the Hanguls between 가 and 힣 (including 가 and 힣) to my growing F77 Minecraft, They'd have to split it as 41 blocks of 512 characters...

And Georgian Extended... (Already in font)

And Hangul Syllables as 22 blocks of 512 (part 22 has 420 characters)

My comment might not belong in this forum (please move if necessary @Meek). I'd love to own the basic "Glyphs" program to smooth my fonts and kern complex unicode points more easily. Can I get Glyphs for IOS to work on windows 7?

Well, @Aeo, Since Glyphs is for mac, probs not...

*sighhhhhh* ok, thanks @77

@Aeolien: I don't know what functionality you want in a font editor, but I know a good, free one for Windows: TypeLight. I've used it to edit a few Fontstructions before and had good results! There are some limitations with it, but for most uses it's perfectly solid.

There is also the free and open-source FontForge

What I use to make my oldstyle numerals work in my font...

@ zeph: it's to kern glyphs with unicode points using letters. I'd love to see carry-over of kerned values from BasicLatin glyphs into other glyph bands while I copy-paste those glyphs there before adding diacritics. Thanks, @Meek!! Got those two, will test :)

Yeah, unfortunately, Glyphs team never plans to make a windows version, and instead pretentiously says "Type Design is a Mac Business," which, it is not. 

Anyways, I trimmed my font, and it didn't work as expected. It trimmed all of my bricks, so I lost the font I was making. I read what it did and it seemed like it was going to work fine.

Sorry to hear that, j4s. I think we all have encountered the fearsome sly Glyphgobbler as he loves those fonts that involve our minds intensely :-/

I agree with Rob. Font Forge is great, once you figure it out. I often create fonts here, and then redraw them with Font Forge. If anyone wants to use it, you can ask me—I've been using FF for years, and there are a lot of programming techniques (class kerning, for example) that are all but impossible to find tutorials for.

An aside to the above comments: this is why I only use Macintosh. Granted, they are predominantly designed for artists. :)

Having tried to make sense of ff  I feel at home with FS and even more enchanted by Meek's work here! I should FS rectangular or square glyphs without sloped edges that might need kerning [tick]. Or give up [cross]. Or get someone talented *looking above* to do the tricky kernings for me [U 2E2E].

Wishlist: a permanent or mouse-over colourchange of the button backgrounds indicating all available language sets, to see where we have saved glyphs on. That would help us beginners find glyphs we made ages ago on a band whose name we've forgotten if we can't get precise help through our computer's character map (or don't know how to search for elusive glyph places). I forgot to say Thank you @ Meek: those new half arcs are wonderful! I feel inspired to sketch some ideas that use them.

The new bricks. Yeah! But, they should be treated the same way as the fin brick (or any other 8 variant brick). So we end up with 32 bricks in total. Having all of them is of course convinient, no need for rotation, various stacking combinations (think when stacking them with each other). 

But if 32 is too much, maybe we first try with just the horizontal and vertical mirror of each brick, so no need for the ones highlighted in the above image. 

But having all 32 will create much more possibilities. We could potentially get the same shapes with 16 bricks by combining it with nudging, but nudging has its limitations and not really comfortable, so I vote for all 32.

This would be a bit of a hassle to code, but maybe a folder that expands to all varieties? What I imagine is the half-arcs with a small arrow in the corner, and when you click it it expands to a folder that looks similar to when you shift-click a composite.

More possibilities are nice, but I think that it may be more important to have a high density of possibility for each brick. Were it not so, we'd have thousands of bricks in the palette just to fill every niche.

I suggested the half-arcs because I saw a ton of individual distinct uses for them at once, while also seeing that they were near impossible to otherwise make. I put together a case to illustrate all that, and then others added even more to it. I think that's the kind of push/demand that's needed to get new bricks added... cool ideas may not have enough merit alone...

Having said all that, there must be a dozen different ways to codify and present bricks. I think it'd be cool if they just added everything, within some set that had to be actively enabled in order for the bricks to be added to the palette. Maybe the new stuff gets written to memory somewhere (an inaccessible glyph?) when an Expert mode option is enabled, then it gets removed from the inaccessible glyph when the mode is disabled, thus trimming the unused ones from the palette.

If you’re bumping the thread, I am reading it. No plans to make the tab editable. I will review the unicode stuff at some point.

thank you

An idea I've had for a while: Make the middle mouse button pan the Fontstructor view. No idea how hard it'd be to implement, but it'd be a very welcome improvement. Cheers!

Funny today I was making exactly the same for the same readson. But I abandonned it later. Since none of my previous brick request got reviewed.. :(

I am requesting 8 curve bricks, so I can be able to create a 2x2 curve with 1x1 filters... Is this possible?

@Se7enty-Se7en That would require 12 bricks right? Or at least 3, and then they can be rotated.

Or just work with 2x2 filters and you can create these with stacks. I pretty much only work with 2x2 filters...just allows for so many more possibilities.

@meek - I'm glad we are able to edit our own comments on our personal Fontstruction pages again (a feature that had been lost for some time during a previous upgrade), but would it also be possible to extend that editting feature for any samples we might upload to our Fontstruction pages?  I know we could previously delete or upload a new sample in the place of an old one, and for those of us that are proof-reading challenged (like me -- I only seem to find errors AFTER I upload them), it would be a nice feature to have again.  Thanks for listening!  :^)

I have a question about the 1/8th segment of the macaroni brick. When using it @ 2:2 brick filter and try to compile a uninterrupted shape out of it by nudging and rotating it seems allignement is offset.

Don't they suppose to allign when they are perfect 1/8th segments?

@Sed4tives: A computation of those inner and outer circle segments shows an inexact alignment.

Download funtion is not working. I get a 504 Gateway Time-out

I can't seem to download my fonts either, I am getting a 504 error after a while...

There should be the ability to rotate bricks in intervals of 15° as it can make fonts with a constant thickness easier to create on FontStruct...

I'd be nice if you could edit the Private Use Area (U+E000 to U+F8FF) without having to mess with the browser console.

@realicraft ...or any unicode block in the BMP...

Well, you can always add symbols to unused charsets, then transfer them to PUAs using any other editor e.g. FontForge.

I'd rather not have to pay just to add something that makes the font have to not be on Fontstruct.

Uhhh... FontForge is open-source. What are you talking about?

Oh, I didn't know that. I will now change my argument to "I'd rather not risk losing my school computer just to add something that makes the font have to not be on Fontstruct."

@Realicraft Have you tried using fontforge while it is on a USB Flash Drive/SD Card?

@Se7enty-Se7en - Using external flash drives/SD cards may not be permitted.  Schools and businesses often have strict rules concerning flash media to prevent unwanted viruses / malware / non-sanctioned software from being used on their machines.

@Goatmeal I don't think that is applicable, judging from the fact that last year (and maybe this year I don't remember) a USB drive was on the materials list

@Se7enty-Se7en No. By the way, is FontForge even Mac compatible?

Also, suggestion for Fontstruct: remove the 500 error on https://fontstruct.com/live

@realicraft Yes, FontForge is usable on Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux...

There's the bug that sometimes after leaving the FontStructor it happens that one brick shows multiple times in the "My Bricks" section. I wonder why this happens.

I concur. Unfortunately I've no idea, although I think Rob (Meek) has asked before if anyone has a step by step procedure that can guarantee this error to occur. I'm unsure as to whether anyone did or not, but it is obviously an ongoing problem, yet to be resolved.

I think you may have been on multiple browser windows of the same font...

Never had it, whereas I often have the same font open in two windows.

That bug can be caused by several things, notably the use of copy/paste. I'm still not sure why it happens for some bricks and not for others. Stacked bricks and composites seem most apt to trigger it. I did record and send video of how to reproduce this and other bugs, but my ways seem to not be the only ways to cause them...

I am proposing the nudging function to be looser and finer...

(So you can be able to nudge further and finer in your fonts and solve certain centering problems with accents)...

I would like to see the establishing of some guidelines for behavior on this site, especially those pertaining to the subject of unsolicited advice.  Alternatively, I'd like to be able to close comments by default on new FontStructions...

@STF I agree, I can't be able to get that brick with composites and stacking... (The e in the sample is from "STF_SEAN-SHERIFF")

Some ideas:

- A way to copy kerning data between a letter and its variants, so you wouldn't have to manually do such a large amount of kerning pairs (for example, you adjust the kerning between AT, AV, AW, and it would automatically copy it to ÀT, ÀV, ÀW, etc.)

- A shortcut key for "delete" (not "cut")

- A "switch UC/LC" option

- A way to change the font's version number

Echoing the above, especially for the copying of kerning data.

My idea: A Metrics panel that can be brought onto the preview screen in Expert mode.  I'm not sure what this would contain other than a line spacing control. The ability to set the line spacing alone would allow for two major sets of advancements, one in editing and one in creating.

Editing: Fonts no longer need to change height or include stray bricks just to increase/decrease the line spacing, diacritic marks can be placed higher without increasing line spacing, line spacing can be set with the same degree of fine control as the letter spacing, the appearance of on-site previews can be controlled (eg, for pattern fonts which may wish to appear as a continuous sheet).

Creating: Lines can join seamlessly like columns can, image and pattern generators can be made which work vertically, fonts can be prepared for "drop-in" use (such as in word processors that don't otherwise allow the user to control line spacing).

I really can't think of any downsides for this. It would afford us all an extra layer of refinement in our finished designs while also allowing us to have fonts displayed as they were meant to be displayed in other software without any need to touch the options. I hope it'll be considered!

Would it be possible to add different pangrams to the existing 2 sentences in the German example text area, for variety like the English one offers. I think these will look good: ## Vom Ödipuskomplex maßlos gequält, übt Wilfried zyklisches Jodeln. ## Schweißgequält vom öden Text zürnt Typograf Jakob. ##  Xaver schreibt für Wikipedia zum Spaß quälend lang über Yoga, Soja und Öko. And for the simple fun of seeing one of the (in)famous German Kunstwörter (as it's too short to give a good visual presentation of a font's flow) : the isogram Heizölrückstoßabdämpfung.

I deleted a character in a font (by erasing all the filled squares) but it seems to be still present in the ttf as a narrow space. Is there a way to remove it entirely?

@bavister: As far as I know, no. Even if you clone that font, the clone will think there are glyphs in those blank spaces.

*

I don't know if this is possible, but here's an idea I had idea just now:

Have the text of the "Pixel" button change to reflect the zoom level or font size. That would allow us to talk about specific sizes as they occur here on the site, in order to show others a particular effect or to quote the ideal size for a font to be viewed in. It would help ensure that more people see fonts presented in an ideal way. We could say "view it in X size" instead of uploading samples.

Probably a good idea to also have the button round all decimals to two digits, or to increments of whatever the smallest change in size is.

Sorry for the typos! It's late here... :D

When you delete all the bricks and put the letterwidth bar to 1 square grid unit the spacing will be restored back the its default setting. ;)

@bavister - It appears that the font is holding the character's width even though you have deleted the glyph.  To fix, select Menu -> View -> Letter Width (or use keyboard shortcut "W").  Move the cursor over the bold green vertical Letter Width line, and click the "x" on the upper-right side (beneath sideways "WIDTH").  This should reset the glyph's width back to "0"; you will know it worked when the Letter Width lines jumps back to its initial location one space to the right of the vertical Left Guide, and the "x" is gone.  Good luck!

I have a request @Meek Would it be possible to get every intervention relating to presentation of glyphs/the font, to transfer automatically to its clone? i.e.letter width, guide placements, all kerned pairs?

This is not a suggestion but something 'strange', it puzzles me. I seem touse 43 bricks used in my font. So I wonder what this message means? What would happen if I removed those 50 unused bricks? Why 50?

@Aeolien: Shift+T activates this. Use this command only when you first load the fontstruction for editing. Meaning, Click the FontStruct button, and as soon as it loads, press Shift+T. Then it will give you a correct values of unused bricks.

Yup to possibility 1and2 @Querty399. Good thinking @ex-rated...

I now have only 49 duplicate bricks and 0 unused ones

Commenting on another user's suggestion, 2x2 curves is something I've also wanted, since all current curves are all of the same size and you can't make individual blocks bigger, Here is an example of a full width and a half width curve blocks, you only need 2 for each and you can rotate, you could also include the two other even thinner ones

@Daviseti12 & @Qwerty399 are right.  I have been asking for these since I got here.  The curve of a B needs to be tighter than for a D.  The slow gentle curve is what we have always been missing.  Even the upper part of an S can be tighter than the lower part.  Without this slow gentle curve that takes 8 to 12 bricks to complete, we are extremely limited in Fontstruct.  Even the 1/8 curves based on 1/4 curve/sphere blocks don't line up with any of the angled bricks.   The connector blocks are missing angled blocks, too. 

But by far, the larger curves and spheres have always been a huge and flagrant oversight.  If I had those alone, that would open the door for so much more.  Of course I don't undertand why they haven't been implemented since I have been whining about the fact they don't exist for so very, very long.

I have long wanted to make you a report that this server is not available in Russia without using a VPN. This may be due to blocking Telegram in Russia, since the Google Fonts service has also been unavailable for some time. Is it possible to solve this problem?

At the expense of new units. I would like to have one (top right). It is strange that it was not added initially.

But more I need № (U+2116) and ₽ (U+20BD), additional characters for Bulgarian Cyrillic (Google Cyrillic Plus / Pro) or Small Caps set.

Also it would be great to add − (U+2212).

On my gallery page I have to open every font to see if comments are disabled and reopen it when the time is right. Could we have some symbol/word on the gallery page when comments are off, and reopen comments with a click on that symbol/word?

I would like to request once more that we be allowed to moderate comments on our own pages. Closing comments entirely is a poor solution that punishes everybody for the actions of one or two people.

Idea: A "Random FontStruction" link on the Gallery menu which leads to a random published FontStruction. This could help us discover lots of underknown works, especially untagged ones.

I tried to create a Mario-esque 0 on FontStruct, but I cannot due to slopes that I need, but cannot be made… Is there a way to enable more slopes (e.g. 11/15, 8/9, 7/12)?

I recently discovered this happening…

This is a suggestion for other users, not staff.

Please consider giving other users more feedback! If a creator knows about WHY you like something, or WHAT you liked about it, that knowledge can be used to make better designs and improve existing ones.

If you like something enough to rate or fave it, please leave feedback! Even a simple "This is great!" can mean a lot. Admittedly, I am guilty of leaving those types of comments myself, but now I've written this, so I'll have to make my own comments better to.

Cheers, guys :)

I usually try to do this already, not everyone in the past seem to enjoy this tho, including yourself. ;-)

Cheers

Zeph, I agree that more feedback would be welcome and useful -- the constructive kind: *no discouraging a designer while technical or design'flaws' are addressed (too many members of all ages wanting to learn about font creation were subjected to agressive comments; comments to teachers/lecturers and their pupils/students were often meant to discourage and upset), *to explain or point to of solutions when such help is asked for or welcomed, *to show appreciation of a design/an interesting design brief/a novel approach to a well-known problem/an unusual shape or outline/surprising visual impact of written lines/a useful 'tool' or tutorial, etc.

Knowing which aspect of a font has attracted interest helps the font creator gain more understanding of what people appreciate in general and what they look for on FS; it results in developing further in technique and creative thought.

Talking about commenting by way of clarifying what a font invokes in the observer -and what the font's creator had in mind when designing and working it- and voting for a font, turns me to my Pet_Point_To_Note: The Vote ...

The FS voting system is part of how we can express appreciation of a font; it represents a summary of the written comment, observation, encouragement, critique but it can't replace a useful important text such as the well  thought-out comment or a (reasonably well explained) encouragement.

Votes tend to indicate at a glance which font is worth studying (for its style be this a skilled or a less accomplished one, for its surprising glyph shapes, for its obvious custom bricks, for its solutions to known common or specific problems). Votes make us try to work out what font aspect(s) attracted us to the font, and the font's creator should be given that information in a supportive manner; this reason for a vote is important to know. FS members should encourage each other to research and test designs, to create fonts for self and others, to participate with pleasure in the life of FS, to share ideas and knowledge, to share fonts for use and to inspire: by suitable comments and thoughtful cooperation. Voting is useful, but comments are what make FS into a wonderful place of learning, discovery, technical and artistic development; criticism is good when it's done in a patient friendly manner as it's important for learning, to encourage experimentation and enable discoveries. A teacher is always pleased when someone shows new understanding and applies it, and any FS member will always appreciate support and encouragement be it through praise or through kindly-formulated critical appraisal = constructive useful guidance through some bothersome maybe stifling problem aspect. It allows to grow and advance (there is always something worthy of praise, in every font!)

@Sed4tives: The nature of the feedback is certainly important. Since you've chosen to broach that subject publicly, I'll respond publicly. There's a lot to say here, so don't view it as a rant directed toward you. It's just the sum of my thoughts on this subject at the moment.

In my previous post I said "feedback" rather than "advice" or "critique" because they are quite different.

Feedback is you telling an artist how their work made you think and feel, how you found it useful, how it inspired you, and so on. When you give feedback, the artist gets to know about these things and build a greater connection with you. Feedback doesn't directly relate to the art process - the styles or methods used - but rather to your appreciation of the end result. So, good feedback is neither favorable nor detrimental to the art process itself.

Unsolicited advices/critiques are problematic because they disregard the intentions and desires of the artist. They carry the tone "You should do it like THIS, not like THAT", which is highly detrimental to the art process. It can cause irreversible damage not only to the art and the art process but also to the artist's own psyche. If you don't know why the artist did things their way in the first place, you are probably not in a position to speak on how things should be improved. Further, the artist's idea of improvement is probably different from your own. If the artist has a vision for that improvement but doesn't know how to realize the vision, they will keep experimenting, disclose their ideas publicly, or they will outright ask. That is the point at which you, the audience, become aware of that vision and are invited to speak about it. Until then, it is just you imposing your vision onto someone else's work. This is annoying and destructive, and those who do it deserve the ire they receive back.

If (for example) an artist decides to make a design in an established style (such as Didone), but then deviates from the traditions and standards for a Didone, it is not the audience's place to "correct" the artist - it is only for them to help the artist in understanding what a Didone traditionally IS. If the artist hears this out and then goes on calling their design a Didone anyway, there is no recourse for the audience. That is as it should be. The artist may have any number of undisclosed reasons for labelling their design as such, and only the artist is qualified to speak on that. Others may see the "mislabelling" as a problem, but it is a problem of definitions, not designs. This problem does not diminish the value or the usefulness of any of the types of designs mentioned.

Now I will put forth the idea that anyone who has used this site regularly for a year or more knows almost everything present in the advice/critique which others give them. It's tiresome to be told things you already know, especially when others don't know what you were actually trying to do in the first place. It's like building a guitar and then being criticized because your guitar makes a terrible dog whistle. If you want a dog whistle, go build or buy one, and leave the artistry to the people who DON'T pigeonhole everything they see.

@Aeolien: Agreed on all points!

@everyone

I wonder if the QuadLine connectors are possible… (Note: The middle segment'll have to be 108 units wide)

The above sample showcases the MonoLine, BiLine, TriLine, and QuadLine Connectors…

Is there any plan to restore the ability to replace the images in comments on our own fonts?

what about character variants. also what if you could change the top, bottom, left, and right limit of the character instead of just the right(this would make it easier not to use kerning).

Suggestion: make composite/stacked blocks in the user palette appear as blue instead of black, so it is more obvious which blocks are composite/stacked.

Suggestion 2: If you build a composite/stacked block which is identical to a prefab/static block, 'collapse' that block into its prefab/static variant.

Suggestion 3: blocks which are exact horizontal/vertical flips of another block should have their own color variant as well (green?), so it is easier to tell whether a placed block is a flipped variant of a prefab block, or a straight prefab block.

(I think this, plus undo (pressing Z), might be the cause of the duplicated blocks in the user blocks section, but I'm not certain... I still haven't managed to find a consistent way to reproduce that issue.)

Suggestion 4: if you drag a block over another block in the user pallete, instead of blindly replacing every instance of the second block type with the first one, display a warning dialog first "you are about to replace every instance of block X with block Y, are you sure you want to do this? Yes/No/Don't ask me again"

Bug: pressing Shift-T while a character is shown that does NOT use all of the current pallete of user blocks will cause the user block table to only contain those blocks used by the current character afterward, despite those blocks being used in other characters!

Bug2: sometimes, after pressing shift-T, the block 0 (in my specific case, the fully square block) was replaced by a duplicated block 1 in every character, but dragging the square block from the prefab pallete over the duplicated block 1 fixed it.

Suggestion 5: allow us to set the character width to 'lock' to exactly a half block size, rather than it being exactly 1 block to the right of the rightmost (?>50% full?) tile unless you manually set it. so instead of locking to full block width, it should also be able to lock to half block width?

Also is there a way to make the character width bar (which appears when you click 'show character width') quantize its locking position rather than having two states: automatic (i.e. you did nothing, or you moved it manually then clicked the 'x' to undo that), or manual (set to any position in the character). I'd like to be able to quantize the position to the nearest quarter block/half block/block maybe by holding shift when dragging it, so I can get it to a more consistent width when having characters which need the character width to end on a half or quarter block boundary.

@"Lord Nightmare" The Fontstructor sets the Letter Width 1 brick after the rightmost brick (It treats all bricks to have the same width)

This had happend a few days ago…

I would love to see a way to filter tags/search results by user. Right now I'm trying to round up all my pixel fonts, but the 'Pixel' tag contains an enormous amount of Fontstructions by other users.

Hmm, belay that last request. I've managed to filter my own results using the on-page search widget... not perfectly, but good enough for what I'm trying to do.

Not sure if this has been suggested already…

The suggestion to add the CJK Unified Ideographs, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A, and Hangul Syllables to allow users to create Chinese fonts…

And Maybe Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (UCAS) to allow users to create fonts for Inuktitut, Carrier, Cree, Ojibwe, etc.

To add to that, They may need to be split in Groups of 256 letters ([Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics 1, Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics 2, etc.], [CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A 1, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A 2, etc.], [CJK Unified Ideographs 1, CJK Unified Ideographs2, etc.], [Hangul Syllables 1, Hangul Syllables2, etc.])

To the german users: Please, how can I type the capital eszett? 

@ Elmo: UC sharp 'S'  is alt+1E9E but typing this as "user input" on font's presentation and also in Fontstructor's preview only gives those numbers and letters. The character map's 'choose then copy' this letter into text doesn't work in FS. I then tried alt+7838 but only got the multiplication symbol. I have no time to try further combinations starting low down with the alt+7300.

@meek Welp, this happened again…

Also, kanna's username contains the S word in it…

@BWM

You know that “Inoshita”’s a Japanese surname right?

@TMC: Exactly

@BMW: And the s word c'mon, dont you think that is a little too much.  ;-)

Recently I saw someone wrote heil satan here @FS, personally I think that is a lot more disturbing than the s word. But that is my opinion.

I would like to add to the offers the ability to download all fonts added to favorites at once (and by a favorite tag) with a license available for this purpose.

So many offers for a service that has not been profitable for a long time. I hope that the support of sponsors will last for another 10 years, and one day it may even be possible to buy some fonts here (but maybe this would change the atmosphere on the site).

Idea: A way to subtract bricks.

Yes, subtracting bricks has been an oft-made request for at least 7 years now...  ;^)

Brick Subtraction should make this [half]circle possible…

This is possible now.

No much others than this.

@Elmoyenique @Merrybot As only one brick at 1x1 filters

This isn't really a suggestion, but I can't find anywhere to put it: What do I do in an "inspect element" menu to gain access to the Private Use Area of Unicode?

Gallery preview images fail to render.

Can you also add a new "rhombus" brick, thinner "thorn" bricks and bricks so you can create 2x2 curves with 1x1 filters?

@Sychoff You can use - (U+002D)

What about an "inspect" button that allows you to look through unclonable and A. R. R. fontStructions, please?

I know that this has been suggested before but:

The ability to @users in comments would be helpful and/or the ability to link directly to comments.

I have an idea of how to accomplish comment links that ideally isn't an intensive programming task, though will require some technical knowledge for users to take advantage of it.

Side note: I believe FontStruct had this feature before (as I have followed some broken links to comments) and I wonder: why was it removed?

Linking to comments could be accomplished by adding the `id` attribute on the comments themselves. Then advanced users could copy that id (using their browser's developer tools) and construct a link such as </fontstructions/show/1538515/forum-fontstruct-suggestions-6#112878> where 112878 is that comment's unique id. Each `div` with the class `fs-comment` already has a `data-id` attribute which contains the unique id of that comment. If namespace conflicts are a concern then that unique id could be prefixed with "comment-", for example: </fontstructions/show/1538515/forum-fontstruct-suggestions-6#comment-112878>.

To make creating comment links easier a hyperlink could be inserted in the html next to each comment. Users could then simply copy and paste this link. To make this easier to implement the link could even exist in the comment metadata section (the gray text beneath each comment with the html class `fs-comment__meta`) so no reformatting would be necessary.

Thank you for reading :-) Would other FontStructors like to see this implemented?

One search option I would like to see is the ability to find a FontStructor's page by their name.  There have been times where I'm searching for one of their fonts, but can't remember the name of the font or a useful tag.  I usually have to rely on blind luck in stumbling across one of their other fonts, or when they've commented on someone else's fonts (so I can find the link to their page).

I'm with Goatmeal. That will be very useful.

A completely different subject:
Hi Rob, I wanted to ask: would it be possible to give the eraser the ability to erase diagonally similar to the line tool? That would be great.

@beate – You can do this already – press shift while using the line tool and you have the line-eraser.

Aaah! ? 

Three big suggestions (will be split into two comments):

More Unicode support: My font 5x7 Type 2 requires some obscure glyphs from blocks not currently supported, like Latin Extended-E (which I currently encode in the Meetei Mayek block), as well as some private use characters (encoded in Braille and Greek Extended). My request list is as follows, from most needed to least needed:

- Latin Extended-E

- Private Use

- Arabic Presentation Forms A (rial sign)

- The proposed Phonetic Extensions Supplement-A block (U+10780 to U+107BF)

- Symbols for Legacy Computing

- The rest of the BMP

- The rest of the allocated SMP

- The Supplementary Primary Use planes

- The rest of Unicode :)

Adjustable line spacing: Another problem with 5x7 Type 2 is that there is too much line spacing. This is most glaring in the Box Drawing and Block Elements blocks, which should line up with no gaps, but in practice have gaps.

3x3 and 4x4 curves: As per above. Ideally I'd like to see 32 different blocks for each of the orientations (convenient, and necessary for stacking in letters such as B), but fundamentally there are just 5, in red, orange, yellow, spring green*, and green.

@erictom333 Saving will fail if there are any glyphs not within the BMP, but will save anything within u+0000-u+FFFF, regardless if it is in the normal charsets (Latin-B, Telugu, Hiragana, Devanagri, etc.), or not (CJK, UCAS, Private Use, etc.)…

@BWM That's good to note. In the meantime, all I'm requesting is access to the rest of the BMP.

I'll keep that in mind. For now, I'd like to be able to access the rest of the BMP.

I noticed that it seems to be possible to change the license of a clone of a font with the Open Font License, even though, according to the definition link in About this License > Full Legal License (https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=ofl_web), "[t]he fonts and derivatives, however, cannot be released under any other type of license." Is there any reason for this, or is this just a mistake (either on my end or Fontstruct's end)?

@realicraft – this issue should be fixed now. Thx for pointing it out!

When working on the mobile version, I noticed that the scroll bar moves slowly, and when you hold the arrow, the bar with letters moves with acceleration until the very end, even if you release the button. This was also the case in the desktop version, but it is especially inconvenient on the small screen.
Therefore, in extended functions, it would be convenient to have a window for quickly navigating to a character entered on the keyboard (maybe add this to the "current letter" window). I think this will greatly speed up the work on the font with different languages.

realicraft, I'm not so sure about the OFL's licensing, but I do have one FontStruction (Valencia N) that is in limbo. I'm still working on a custom license for it.

1. Creating a single fork with the appropriate license doesn't absolve you of the responsibility regarding the other forks.
2. Violating licenses isn't very ethical of you.

Less bruqsue and less weirdly emotionally attached:

I don't know why realicraft[1] chose the OFL license, but the OFL license was what allowed you to clone Circles, and not respecting the OFL is IMO pretty rude to your fellow FontStructor. Your 'workaround' of making another clone is bizarrely roundabout in my opinion as opposed to just... changing the license of your original clones??? and isn't an answer. I'm not sure why you're so opposed to that?

I saw Valencia A on your profile and thought it was honestly fairly good-looking, but the paragraph in the description rambling about how you changed the license struck me as bizarre, and reminded me of posts about the (im)mmutability of the OFL that appeared on the Live feed.

[1] who I see now is the person who brought up the OFL in this thread first, which honestly makes things worse IMO

Like I said, I'm working on a custom license that can be easy to understand. Don't force me to pull it down.

I know that you're unhappy about this, but I'm working on a custom license that can be easy to understand.

Is that too much to ask?

I would like to respectfully request that the grid lines be made darker/more visible. It's very hard to see them at all on a modern monitor. Even on the old monitor which I used for all my other FS projects, I have to zoom in and out a lot to get them to show up, and even then it's often a process of trial-and-error to see whether I've adjused my letterwidths properly.

Alternatively, an option for darker (or solid) grid lines would work too!

Cheers,

Zeph

An addition to @Zephram's suggestion, perhaps make the gridlines (and other adjustable lines) have an intensity slider?  That way, the FontStructor could adjust as desired.

Bug: The function of replacing a brick with another brick (when dragging a new brick onto an old one) does not work quite correctly, because if you start changing the font after that, the old brick will return, which means that replacing the bricks should be the last action before saving the font. Can this be fixed?

Something weird happened: The icons appear to be messed up in the FontStructor after an update (I think this was happening about a week or two ago), which makes certain icons invisible (or barely visible)…

(And yes, I tried clearing the cache, but that didn't seem to work)

The same thing is happening to me since yesterday. I thought it was my problem.

Noticed it the other day, too.

Aha. Thanks for pointing that out! Should be fixed today at some point.

https://youtu.be/rUqpZBjW6e8 

^ the bug's behavior more in detail
there is this weird bug with "inverted leaf" blocks. it's been there for about a year i think. I am using vivaldi in the video but it also happens on microsoft edge and google chrome. two inverted quarter arcs stacked to form the same shape are also affected. seems to be a problem with the vector outlines of the blocks? I'm not really sure. 

This is a bug in chromium.

The brick is fine in Firefox and presumably in downloaded fonts as well.

@meek: Thanks, boss. All OK now.

i did not get the icon glitch before but now i am getting the glitch, and it seems like the glitch is happening in the exact opposite way compared to screenshots other people have posted (smaller icons instead of larger, and moving the opposite directions). it seems like fixing that problem resulted in another problem... for now it is not a big problem

@bluemon Have you tried clearing the cache…

oh thank you! that fixed it

I have a specific question and suggestion about usability (maybe someone has already complained about this before me). Why does it return to the first page after deleting a font? This prevents from quickly deleting multiple fonts in a row.

I have a proposal that would solve the problem of having to scrollthrough thousands of CJK, Hangul or PUA characters. The Unicode Character Set switchshould be moved from the menu to next to the exisging charsacter subset selector, and become a dropdown menu, with the folloeing options:

- Basic: As present.

- Unicode: As present.

- Legacy: Various legacy character sets, including Windows snd DOS codepages and PETSCII.

- Shift-JIS: Self-explanatory. Arranged by codepsge.

- CJK by Radical: CJK ideographs arranged by radical.

- CJK by Pinyin/Bopomofo/Hangul/Kana: Somewhat self-explanatory.

- CJK by Frequency?

- Hangul: Hangul syllables arranged by initial consonant.

- Not sure how Yi could be implemented

- Private Use: Arranged by 256-character block.

- Should you include support for other planesof Unicode, I've got similsr ideas for Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Tangut, emojis, and other large scripts.

- Unicode by Code: Last resort. All of Unicode by 256-character block.

Hello! I have a suggestion for removing fonts.

I accidentally deleted 2 of my fonts, 1 already published and 1 almost finished. First font I deleted, missclicked "delete" button, a warning window appeared: are you sure? Your font will be permanently deleted. This cannot be undone. I clicked on the "cancel" button, and suddenly... font was removed! I created an empty font, did the same thing and the font was also deleted and now it works. In short, first suggestion: make the "cancel" button a non-troll

It's already my fault that I deleted the second font and not the "troll" button. Second suggestion: make a "padlock" button:

which disables the "delete" button:

@fontlanger I’m aware of the bug. Note that I can undelete things – just let me know via contact page.

@Rob Meek (meek) Thank You very much!

Thank you, but I restored the first font (I had a clone of it), and I'm already finishing the second one.

Once again asking for PUA support. I have thousands of personal characters, far more than the High Private Use Surrogates block can hold, and I can't put them in another block because I might encode that later. I'd also like Arabic Ext-A, Latin Ext-E, and Arabic Presentation Forms-A for my uses as well (the first 2 more than the latter).

And besides, no glyph should be put in the Surrogate area cause it probably won't work as intended (it either gets replaced with "�" or when a high and a low surrogate are next to one another, it renders something from the higher planes). Quoted from Wikipedia: "The UCS uses surrogates to address characters outside the initial Basic Multilingual Plane without resorting to more-than-16-bit byte representations."

I know. That's why I need PUA support.

Furthermore, for some scripts (Arabic, Syraic, Indic scripts, Tibetan, Phags-Pa), Character Map does not show the correct pixel rendering, instead showing a non-pixel fallback from another font. This does not happen with numerals or Arabic presentstion forms. Whydoes this happen? (I think that this is because the scripts have complex shaping, but Phags-Pa doesn't.) Does anyoneelsd have this problem? Can it be fixed?

One more for now: Fonts with excessive numbers of tags take up an awful lot of space when browsing. Would it be possible for the website to only show the first few tags?

Friday, June 18, 2021 - Icons got messed up again. I'm using Chrome browser on windows 10. Chrome Version 91.0.4472.114

Seems like Shift+L (Rotate counterclockwise) does not work any longer while Shift+R, Shift+H, Shift+V do, at least in Firefox. Instead, Shift+L does the same as L (Goto letter). Confused me a little.

Some minor issues I noticed:
- If you have expert mode on, the filter window shows the grid scaling controls like it should, but if you turn expert mode off and then back on, they won't show up anymore.

- When you paste bricks, they are not selected by default like they used to be.

A suggestion for better diacritic support:

- Every glyph now has a "bounding box", which by default surrounds it, but can be changed like with the width and line height, and a "center" centered by default but similarly adjustable.

- There is a new dialog for selecting if a character is to be a diacritic, and where on a character it will be placed. Diacritics can be placed above left, above, above right, left, center, right, below left, below or below right. The diacritic will be placed such that its origin lies on the respective point (for example, the top left corner of the bounding box if above left, the center if centered, et cetera.)

- Diacritics can have horizontal and vertical spacing or not, so diacritcs can stack on top of one another or overlap.

I just downloaded a font as otf and found an issue. The slash character got the appearance of a backslash. Maybe there are more characters, I don't know.

By the way, the link of the this forum is somehow weird, it's https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1538515/forum-fontstruct-suggestions-6 but https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1538515/forum-fontstruct-suggestions-4 redirects here …

could we bring back cross-font copy pasting? I use it a lot to copy base glyphs over to the main font for diacritic letters (since the provided function is limited to only some characters) and also 3x3 pseudo quarter circles (which is very convenient to have but it takes a bit to set up from scratch) and also could we get a better tool for copy pasting over base glyphs? maybe like the current one but customizable. this might even help with compositing hangul glyphs if combined with the layer function 

cross-font copy pasting +1 (i also miss it.)

Similat vein: Mass copy pasting. I have encoded copies of SMP blocks in the PUA, which are now redundant, but I'd like a method of copying them over that's easier than individually copy-pasting hundreds of glyphs. For example, I want to be able to copy all of U+F700...U+F7FF to U+1BF00...1BFFF, through a dialog that lets me enter the (preferably hexadecimnal) character codes for the start, end and destination.

Also (for other users more than me): The "Copy Diacritics" macro should cover all letters in the block you are in, not just Latin-1 Supplement. For example, A should copy its glyph to all of ÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂĄǍǞǠǺȀȂȦȺḀẠẢẤẦẨẪẬẮẰẲẴẶꞺ.

@Echo Heo (Bluemon) , @jirinvk -- If you mean copy-pasting glyphs between two different open FontStruction tabs, I just brought up this recent loss of functionality to Rob yesterday. (What a coincidence!). :^)

And if you could do the same with a letter so that it would retain its properties in its kerning pairs, then that would be super fantastic! (You've to ask for Heaven).

Copy and paste should be working again now.

it works. thanks!

@meek - Thanks, Rob.  You're the best!

There are letters in "Greek and Coptic"

I know there was a compatibility issue with ctrl-shortcuts, but could you add them back as well as the shortcuts that are just the letters? That way the compatibility issue is still solved while still having ctrl-shortcuts available for people that can use them. Because when I want to copy something,
>ctrl-C
>go over to the glyph where i want it copied
>ctrl-V
>it's not working
>be annoyed
>find the first glyph again
>c
>go to the second glyph
>v

When ideally it should just be
>ctrl-c
>go to second glyph
>ctrl-v
I also don't seem to be able to undo most move actions, which I'm pretty sure is a bug

I'd like way to override the inbuilt line height calculations. In Pixel Sans, each line is 24 pixels high, even though the line metrics give a height of 9 pixels, all characters have been trimmed to a maximum height of 19 pixels (6 above the top and 4 below the bottom), and I'd want it to be 12 pixels high.

Also, Pixel Sans still isn't installing properly. Comment posted there.

Why aren't any of my comments showing up in the Selected Live feed, even though others' on my fonts do? What determines what shows up there, anyway?

A shortcut to delete a character (and reset spacing).

And/or: A shortcut to delete every character in a block.

Ability to rotate blocks by 45° increments instead of just 90° ones

Is the character counter supposed to stay at the same number even after I choose Advanced > Commands > Remove empty glyphs?

@Houlaiziaa No the glyph count should update. It’s a known bug. It should/might correct itself after a while.

I suggest this brick:

external arc of connecting macaroni biline.

This would help me to continue working with 6-11 of my fonts.

Please

Oh, no, don't

Hello, after some long break I returned and am still new to use advanced techniques.

Please, would it be somehow possible to make a clone of my own fontstruction and then replace all of the bricks of one type for different one en masse in all glyphs at once? For example to change all square bricks into dots?

Like this

Into this

@Peter (Petruuccio) - You already can.  Clone the font, select a new brick from the "Bricks: Core" section on the left, then click-and-drag it on top of the old brick in the "My Bricks" section on the top left.  Voila -- the bricks are replaced.

@Goatmeal - wow, thank you, that is great, it worked like magic :-)

I have seen some tutorials, but could not find this bit of useful info.

@Peter (Petruuccio) - Happy to help.  I look forward to seeing  your future creations.  :^)

Some brick suggestions...

I can create none of those bricks, even with a mixture of composites, and stacking without having to change the filter size…

Also, How did you manage to make them on the grid in the image above?

@BWM I made it in Inkscape.

I would especially need the bottom middle for my rounded fonts: Depixelised has some awkward curves, while NPS Sixtyfour requires dedicated composites to make the curves.

Eh, I thought when everything settles down in my region, I will pay money, become a patron and "start a new era" at home and I will have an advantage... But, I will have to share my ideas :)
I can't help with the first two lines, but I know how to do the last one, are you a patron? Just use layers! Here is the font with explanations. In this way, you can make all curves of any thickness. And in general a lot of different cool bricks.
In the end it turns like "subtraction", but I would call it "overlay". I came up with this Feb 23rd (and posted above), but I was late.

*at FontStruct

@fontlanger2005: Thanks for the suggestion, but in practice using a white color doesn't really work – it should be transparent (if you're using the font on a colored background), and if you're using a program that doesn't support color fonts, it's rendered in black.

so

at least something.

I have somewhat of a more technical question related to messed up font size and the leading / line spacing generated in the OpenType rendering of a Fontstruction. The TrueType font on the other hand seems fine. Anyone can explain why the OpenType gets messed up like this? OpenType font becomes usable with excessive amounts of extra Leading added when available in the graphic tool.

I will show a example image in the next comment to provide a visual perspective in my issue.

Cheers

@STF I also encountered that on OTF downloads, sometimes certain glyphs become distorted, making it esentially useless for editing in FontForge without more editing (at least for me)

In my case, the otf download was completely useless as there was no glyph in it at all (.ttf file is still usable though)

And yes, in the font that I am working on, the oldstyle numerals, the small caps, a custom .notdef, etc. glyphs that are not a Unicode codepoint, I have put them in the SPUA-A…

[Full Size image (not resized to 700 pixels width so the text is more readable)]

Weird that the seemingly broken OpenType version of the same font loaded into FontLab Studio seems to have no issue at all, I dont get it...

Mkay, I'm pretty sure it is caused by the highest and lowest two bricks in relation to the top and bottom "line-height" guides.

Since these two guides mark the outer top and bottom edges of the font metrics, nudging a brick back in from any of the surrounding grid squares sitting beyond the two guides isn't entirely without consequence.

Large grid designs aren't likely going to suffer from this a lot, but the effect is going get amplified as font size getting smaller.

So with very small grid designs, for example with a font height of only 4 grid units this becomes a huge issue. At this ratio just one square grid unit equals 1/4th or 25% of a font's total height.

To provide you with perhaps a more correlative and digestable perspective I'm going to compare this with another typographic unit measurement.

So when generally speaking, for example, when add character overshoot, only adding 1% to 3% of the cap or x-height is typical for O in most designs.

So I dont need to further explain that any adjustments, even the very slightest, spreading over a effective range of 25%, will translate to, lets just say "A WHOLE LOT".

So nudging a brick back in from any grid location beyond these lines will add an additional extra grid unit to the font's total height, thus changing the vertical metrics of the font. Even when nudging only to fill up a gap, and in reality the font height never actually truly was meant to be changed.

Nudging outwards and overshooting the "line-height" guide also isn't fully without any consequence. Everything of the brick's surface area that exceeds these lines will be chopped and excluded from view. Since beyond this points space is no longer part of the font metrics.

@meek: Now that I know the above, I wonder whether it is possible to make the top & bottom line-height setting decisive for the font metrics.

Overruling even all possible conflicting brick to grid coordinate occupation, unless one of the line-guides is moved.

So, in other words, simply to exclude grid coordinate occupation from affecting font metrics to begin with.

Or perhaps some way to custom set the hirachy for metrics changes, something that allows the two not having to be linked together all of the time.

Cheers!!

What about the 4:4 format? Is it feasible?

And how about this surprising method? Is 4:4 also required? I think it's likely.

I think it uses 2x2 with lots and lots of nudging and stacking…

Some similarities. I'm still at it.

My greatly admired Grand Wizard will.i.ૐ seems to move the bricks in such short distances with an ease that only a 4:4 could allow... or more...

@elmoyenique

I'd really like some of Yautja's bricks, notable the bottom middle one, to build my font Monospac, which has some letters (aems@) that can't work without it.

Well, if started talking about curves, I will suggest this:
(translucent grey – bricks that already exist;

translucent blue – bricks that can be made with using composites.)

Curves thicker than 1/8 pixel will be make by stacking.

Errrrrr...

@AFontAbove It's probably because there is not enough horizontal space, so it has to break onto another line for it to be displayed in full.

No, I meant: Why is it listing out all the elements of the composite so as to require two lines to display it?

Can't it just say something like: "Composite Brick #215" or something...

P.S. That is my suggestion. Don't list the elements of a composite when hovering over it.

Now that we have the... y'know... composite element remover thingy to see the elements of the composite?

P.P.S. On that note, here is another suggestion:

In the case of stacked composites, view the individual composite layers instead of scrrambling them into one box.

P.P.P.S. Sorry for the number of comments.

Bug: The 'Copy to Latin Accents' command does not copy to Ý or ý.

Even More Suggestions:
1)
"The 'Copy Diacritics' macro should cover all letters in the block you are in, not just Latin-1 Supplement. For example, A should copy its glyph to all of ÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂĄǍǞǠǺȀȂȦȺḀẠẢẤẦẨẪẬẮẰẲẴẶꞺ." - erictom333
While this is a good idea, it results in characters a user may not want, and the font ends up quite cluttered. For this reason, I propose a suggestion:
Allow users to select which blocks to copy to with the "Copy to Latin Accents" command. For example:
Say you want to copy the letter 'A' to Latin-1 and Latin Ext-A, but not any other blocks. By default, it will copy to ÀÁÂÃÄÅ. However, if you select the option to copy to Latin Ext-A, it will copy to ĀĂĄ as well.
The interface could look something like this:

Copy 'A' to which letter sets?
[] More Latin (6)
[] Latin Extended-A (3)
[] Latin Extended-B (8)
[] Even More Latin (13)
[] Latin Extended-D (1)

2)
A subtraction feature.

P.S.

Suggestion 2 might help with Sed4tives' kerfuffle...

If you subtract a small inverted round from a big one...

If you know what I mean. :^)

Another bug:

@AFontAbove - A "subtraction feature" has been a common request for at least the last 8 years...  ;^)

I do think the fact of not having one boosts creative and intuitive thinking, nonetheless more than welcome obviously!

add a option that makes the font wide

@AFontAbove I was thinking that it would copy letters to whatever block you are currently in, so if you were in Latin-1 Supp, A would copy to ÀÁÂÃÄÅ, but if you were in Latin Ext-A, it would copy to ĀĂĄ, and likewise for the rest of the alphabet and Latin blocks. Further, I would like if this could be extended to other scripts, so Greek Α would copy to Ά when in the Greek and Coptic blcok and to ἈἉἊἋἌἍἎἏᾈᾉᾊᾋᾌᾍᾎᾏᾸᾹᾺΆᾼ in the Greek Ext block.

@Radio80 This can be achieved using filters.

@erictom333, I wonder if this includes copying look-alike letters into blocks of other scripts (Latin O into Greek Omicron, Cyrillic O, and Armenian Oh, for example)

I don't think that would be necessary.

Oh I forgot:

3)

A skew feature. Useful for italics.

Interface (under Filters):

Horizontal Skew

-45° -------0------- 45°

Vertical Skew

-45° -------0------- 45°

@erictom333:

1) While this is a cool idea, I think it might be a bit awkward.

2) To me, for some reason, it doesn't make sense to copy letters between scripts.

However, brilliant ideas.

@radio80fm You can use filters for this as long as you are in Expert Mode.

Ah. I see what you mean now.

*by copying into other scripts.

I somehow overlooked the "Greek A" in your comment.

My apologies, @erictom333

Not a suggestion, but recently I found that new users have a tendency to say random things in the comments of some Top Picks. I gathered a few pictures to show you what I mean.

Why does this happen all the time with these kind of users?

@frongile Those people's comments are usually their only comment ever on FS...

(and those peoople usually have not published a single FSion)

I have constructed somewhat of an odd novelty, a 152 × 152 grid units circle. The grid dimensions are terrible to work in, even at 0,5 : 0,5 'Grid Scale' filter and zoomed out max in order to move quickest from bottom to top still requires 2× full in-screen drags with the 'Hand Tool' to complete. So the huge size is very impractical to work with.
But this is just for the sake of informational showcasing of the great level of smoothness that is possible. And to underline the level of smoothness in greater detail I constructed the circle with only 1 square grid unit (1 brick) stroke thickness. No 'Brick Size' filter was used, no brick-nudging was applied, it solely relies on composite bricks.
I will add this to my existing shared/clonable 'STF_FAUX BEZIER ROTUNDS'  Tool soon!

@Sed4tives: this is insane. How is it even possible? One brick thick, and no filter tricks or nudging! It doesn't look like a circle to me; it is squashed a bit at the top, bottom, and both sides, but it's rounded enough. I might add you only had to do a quarter or  1/8 slice of the curve and finish the rest with copy, rotate, and flip functions. Still, it must have taken quite a lot of tinkering and polishing until you've got the final smooth circle. Congratulations. Great demo GIF, btw.

@Frodo: I can't recall if I have copied and rotated the segments, possibly not for the one important reason that any modified brick that would get subjected to composite stacking will restore to it's original orientation. And not being able to stack bricks as how they appear  orientated in relation to the current grid view can be a real pain in the ...

Oh, looking at ir again, I notice one specific slope angle does have nudged bricks. It's been a while since I actually made it so I can't remember exactly every step, Sorry for the misleading information at first, still the gross majority of the circle is solely plain unmodified composite bricks. ;-)

Why is it that the font rendering for the FontStruct galleries often incorrectly depicts provided metrics for the certain font? Not just that, it sometimes even feels like it can change over time with each new rendering of the font example.

Look more closely to the kerning / letter spacing, you can see there is clearly some deviations going on, while I'm 100% certain everything was set up and adjusted correctly.

@meek: Dear Boss, since this morning I can't save my work in FS:

"Server error
There was an error saving your work.
Any changes you have made cannot currently be saved.
If this problem persists, please contact support."

This message does not allow me to save my changes to FS. I've tried clearing the cache, cloning the font, renaming the font, turning the computer off and on... everything I could think of ( :-) ) to no avail. What happen? Is it my problem or is it yours?... Sorry and thanks in advance.

Any ideas out there, folks?

@elmoyenique: same problem

It's not just you, There is probably a problem with the servers.

@meek: Thank you Big Chief! Now everything seems to be going well. It's summer and there are many of us doing many glyphs all at once, that's something easily understandable. Thank you once again for putting in our hands such an invaluable and wonderful tool as FontStruct, admired Rob!

~ Summer on half the planet, sorry...

sorry if these have been suggested, but how about 4 way connect blocks, and a way to type a character, so you can copy the glyph onto the one your on, or for fast travel. if any of these are a thing, its just that im on mobile.

or a codepoint, if it's assigned a block if you don't know what it looks like. Also, this page is starting to lag my phone heavily…

Comments now closed.
To continue please go here.