I think I understand what is going on, but I may be mistaken so Erwin might want to comment on this.
The composite is made up of two glyphs positioned relative to one another. The user sets the relative position so that the accent or whatever looks correct and the program should strive to keep this relative position unchanged. If Auto Metrics adjusts the side bearings of either glyph then it will also move the relative position of the glyphs making up the composite.
I think the behavoiur of Auto Metrics ‘should’ be to keep the relative position of the two glyphs the same, as the user set it, but this might be difficult to achieve. It would mean changing the actual position of one of the glyphs to keep the relative position the same, this would be a lot of work because when adjusting the bearings of any glyph Auto Metrics would also have to check the composites using that glyph.
Perhaps the offset between the two glyphs could be stored and used for positioning but this would require a reference point on each glyph which doesn’t change if the side bearings change.
This is probably a lot of programming work.
The situation is much better with FC 11 than FC 10. FC 11 leaves the side bearings of any composite which has the ‘use this glyph’s metrics’ flag set. FC 10 used to ignore this flag and just set the bearings to what it thought appropriate. But FC 10 did keep the relative position the same whereas FC 11 doesn’t.
The Undo works correctly now, but the diacritic marks still move. That’s quite a hassle because there are so many composites that I’ll have to fix manually, unless I make them all simple (which I don’t really want).
I’ve also checked out what the “Use this glyph’s metrics” does and I’m not sure I really understand this. I would have thought that, when the flag is set for the base glyph, the metrics should be the same as the base glyph’s. But they aren’t.
My O’s side bearings are 57/114. All the O composites have that flag set for the base glyph, yet their bearings are 100/71.
Also, if I don’t set the flag for any glyph, I can manually change the side bearings of the composites. I would think that now changing the base glyph’s side bearings doesn’t have any effect on the composite’s anymore, but it does.
Do I just not understand this or is it not working correctly?
Duh, the different values for base glyphs and composites came from FC 10. I forgot that I ran AutoMetrics there before installing the new version.
I re-installed version 10 now, gave all glyphs fixed side bearings and installed version 11 again, so I could start fresh there. Running AutoMetrics now provides equal values for base glyphs and composites.
However, the diacritic marks still move, and what I described about not setting the flag “Use this glyphs’s metrics” for any glyph still happens. Changing the base glyph’s side bearings will change the composite’s anyway.
Problem is, Complete Composites horizontally puts my diacritics in the correct position, but not vertically. They are all way too high, so I have to fix them anyway.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean. In that paragraph of mine that you quoted I mentioned two issues and I don’t quite know which one you refer to by saying “It” should only happen …
Also, I’m not sure what selected list of glyphs you mean. I don’t actually select any list.
I’ll try to explain better what I mean.
1st problem - the misplaced diacritic marks: As soon as the base glyph’s side bearings are being changed, the diacritics are no longer where they’re supposed to be (and it doesn’t matter if it’s AutoMetrics that changes the base glyph’s metrics or if I do it manually).
For instance, before running AutoMetrics my O’s side bearings were 100 on both sides. Optical Metrics set them to 105 both. The problem is that AutoMetrics forces the LSB point to be at x=0. Thus only the RSB line moves and the O glyph gets centered between the bearing lines, while the diacritics in the O’s composites stay where they are.
When I change the side bearings of the base glyph manually I can avoid this by simply unchecking box of the LSB point to be at x=0. Then both the LSB and RSB line move while the glyph itself remains in its position. But AutoMetrics activates that box automatically.
I don’t know how the programming was different in FC 10, I just know that didn’t happen. As PJMiller said, the relative position of the glyphs was kept, no matter how I changed the base glyph’s side bearings.
2nd problem - the thing with the “Use this glyph’s metrics” flag: I thought that, with this flag NOT set for any glyph member, the composite will have its own side bearings that I can change as I please, and so far it works. If I uncheck that flag for both glyph members, those little grey composite icons on top of the LSB and RSB lines disappear and I can now change the values (which I can’t as long as the flag is set).
But I would also think that now changing the base glyph’s metrics shouldn’t affect the composite anymore. But it does.
The vertical position is calculated. If the position over the lowercase is way too high, then your diacritics all need to be moved down — they are not moved vertically for positioning over lowercase. You can check this in Composite Glyph Properties and see that Y=0.
If only the diacritics over capitals is too high for your liking, recalculate the CapHeight, or manually modify it to adjust the vertical position. If you make simple and use Complete Composites again, the vertical position will be adjusted.
