Ligatures - two simple questions

[Bageder]

I understand that a ligature is a 'join' between letters (glyphs). I'm getting nowhere with ligatures. I'm starting from rock bottom, and I'm lost in technicalities and unfamiliar words. I've tried some tutorials, but they seem to address more complicated issues.

(I'm using the FontCreator Professional.)

First, in the simplest possible terms, how do I make ligatures? My efforts simply do not work.

Second, how do I make space in the font definition file for a large number of ligatures.

Here's what I'm trying to do:
It's a very simple handwriting style, but pairs of letters join, or not, in different ways. For example,
t joins from the cross to a c i m n, but is not joined to ascenders like b h l, ...,
horizontal joins follow f o r t v, ..., except when followed by e,
when f follows a c m n, ..., it has different shape,
the second f of ff has a different shape,
etc...

I estimate that the letters join in 15 different ways, though some simplification may be possible.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Ligatures are not what you need. What you are doing is creating a cursive font, for which you need to use Contextual Alternates.

For this, you need to create two or more versions of some letters and use an OpenType feature to substitute the appropriate glyph dependent on the context. This alternate glyphs do not need any Unicode mapping, but they need to be named appropriately.

The linked thread above is a bit old, but I don’t think it is out-of-date yet.

[Bageder]

Thank you. I've been on the wrong track for days. I will definitely follow your advice.

[Erwin Denissen]

This tutorial covers Contextual Alternates which might give some more ideas.

https://www.high-logic.com/font-editor/ ... e-features

[Bageder]

Thanks. I seem to have a fairly steep learning curve at the moment.

[Bageder]

Thank you for your help so far.

There are two OpenType Features example files at:
viewtopic.php?p=26561#p26561 .
I wonder if one of those (probably the second) could be brought up-to-date, as neither FontCreator 15 nor I, can interpret them?
Or is there an alternative example?

I won't be able to respond immediately as I am going away for a few days.

[Bageder]

I'm still struggling with this. I'm an absolute beginner, but I think I've made progress.

I have created some classes and looked at the Code Editor, but I cannot understand how to use the classes.

I have one class call "diagonal" which I want to join to another class by a diagonal join. (I'm tempted to call the "join" a "ligature", but I'm not sure if that's right.) When the characters of the "diagonal" class come before other characters, there should be no join.

Can someone please help me with this? It's supposed to be easy, but I cannot see it.

Is there a simple example font I could load, perhaps, to see how it's done?

[Erwin Denissen]

A ligature is used as a replacement of two or more glyphs. What you describe related to cursive attachment, but that is not meant for Latin based characters.

However, it might be worth a try to upload an illustration or screenshot of what you try to achieve.

Or upload a reduced version of your font, so we can go from there.

[Bageder]

Erwin
Thanks for offering to help.

Ultimately, I want the font to look like the attached image. It's Tom Gourdie's "Simple Modern Hand". (It's for personal non-commercial use).

These letters: a c d e h i k l m n u
join to the next letter, a b c d f g h i ...
by a diagonal join.

If I can achieve that, I feel I'll be able to approach other joins and refinements.

These letters: b g j p q s x y
do not join to the next letter.

Regards
Bageder

SMH_photo.jpg (354.44 KiB) Viewed 39 times

[Bageder]

There's not much to my font as yet, so I'm attaching the project file.