remove unused anchors

[NinnaD]

How can I delete either unused or selected anchors from a group of glyphs - other than manually one by one?

[Erwin Denissen]

This is not possible right now.

[NinnaD]

OK, thank you.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Actually, it can be done by copying the glyph to a new glyph, and using paste special. The paste special dialog offers an option to omit anchors.

However, if the glyph is used by composites, the connections will be lost.

[NinnaD]

Yes, I was very happy with that trick as it's extremely useful - alas not for removing one or two and leaving others, and, as you've pointed out, that's further complicated by composites. Btw, why, does adding an anchor also add it to composites - but not the other way round (deleting it)?

[Erwin Denissen]

Yes, I was very happy with that trick as it's extremely useful - alas not for removing one or two and leaving others, and, as you've pointed out, that's further complicated by composites. Btw, why, does adding an anchor also add it to composites - but not the other way round (deleting it)?

With Auto Attach all anchors will be inherited from the glyphs that are used to make the composite. Anchors that are removed from the base glyph will remain available at the composite glyph, as it is not aware of the source of its anchors.

[NinnaD]

However, when I do the following:
1. remove 1 anchor on a
2. disable AutoAttach on agrave
3. make agrave empty
4. make agrave simple
5. enable AutoAttach on agrave
6. agrave Complete Composites > Anchor Based

On agrave I still have that 1 anchor I deleted from a. So before Complete Composites I also need to manually remove anchors from agrave. One might hope that creating the composite from scratch would lose the unwanted anchor, but that's now the case. (the 1 anchor in this example is not used anywhere, it's just a dummy for testing purposes)

[Erwin Denissen]

However, when I do the following:
1. remove 1 anchor on a
2. disable AutoAttach on agrave
3. make agrave empty
4. make agrave simple
5. enable AutoAttach on agrave
6. agrave Complete Composites > Anchor Based

On agrave I still have that 1 anchor I deleted from a. So before Complete Composites I also need to manually remove anchors from agrave. One might hope that creating the composite from scratch would lose the unwanted anchor, but that's now the case. (the 1 anchor in this example is not used anywhere, it's just a dummy for testing purposes)

It is by design, as you can add and edit anchors to an Auto Attach composite.

[NinnaD]

I understand the idea, but somewhere there should be an option of an action that clears existing anchors before the composite is rebuilt, like maybe a second type of Complete Composites > Anchor Based?