Glyphs-Handbook-2013

Pro User Tip: If you want
to control which marks
are associated with which
base glyph, create a copy of
GlyphData.xml in the Info
folder you can find via Script >
Open Scripts Folder. Create it
next to the Scripts folder if it
is not there yet. Then, edit the
anchors and accents attributes.
You will find the XML file in
the Package Contents of the
Glyphs application. Drill down
to Contents/Frameworks/
GlyphsCore.framework/
Versions/A/Resources.
Setting and resetting anchors also works for multiple glyphs at
once. Glyphs will respect the italic angle of the master.
Once you have anchors in your letters, all you need to do is
refine their position. An anchor in the base glyph is connected
with the anchor in the mark glyph by sharing the same name
and additional underscore prefix, e.g., a ‘top’ anchor in the base
glyph and a ‘_top’ anchor in the mark are used to place the
mark glyph in the compound glyphs. Select an anchor and two
points and choose Align Selection (Cmd-Shift-A) from the Layers
menu to horizontally center the anchor between the points.
Again, Glyphs will respect the italic angle of the master.
Build compound glyphs by either creating a glyph with the
proper name, e.g., ‘aacute’, or by selecting one or more existing
glyphs and choosing Layers > Make Component Glyph (Cmd-Opt-
Shift-C) to rebuild the glyph as a composite. Glyphs will use
a built-in database of glyph compositions to determine the
components of the glyph in question. You can add components
yourself to an existing glyph by choosing Layers > Add
Component … (Cmd-Shift-C) and picking the base glyph.
If you have already drawn a letter that you want to turn
into a component-based glyph, you can force the composition
with Layers > Make Component Glyph if the individual
components already exist as separate glyphs in the font. If
they do not already exist, you can create a new component
from an existing path in an outline layer by selecting the path
you want to turn into a component and choosing Layers >
Component from Selection or picking Component from Selection
from the context menu. Glyphs will then suggest a name of
the component based on the decomposition information from
the built-in glyph database. Once you confirm the dialog,
Glyphs will create a new glyph containing the the selected
path and place it as a component in the original glyph. This
mechanism is useful for deriving dotaccent and dotlessi from
i, for instance.
When creating new compound glyphs, you can use
composition recipes and force a non-standard composition.
You can build recipes in three ways:
base → copy
base + mark → diacritic
base + base → ligature
In the first example, the copy recipe, Glyphs will create a
glyph called ‘a’ with ‘A’ placed in it as a component. In the
Glyphs Handbook, May 2013 18