User Manual - User Interface

Using Slider

To launch Slider, double-click on the Slider icon. Alternatively, you can drag a font file onto the icon to launch Slider.

Upon opening Slider, you will be presented with a file selector dialog. From this, you should select a font which has been passed through the AAT Font Tool application.

While Slider cannot remove any information from a font, it is always a good idea to keep a backup copy of your font before editing it with Slider, or any other tool.

Glyph Editing Window

Once the font has been opened, the glyph editing window appears:

Most of the glyph editor is taken up with displaying the currently-edited glyph. When the window is resized, the glyph display is also resized to reflect the new window dimensions.

To the right of the glyph display, Slider shows the offset of the accent component ("X/Y shift funits") in Font Units, the compound glyph's Postscript™ name ("Glyph Name:"), and the compound glyph's index within the font's 'glyf' table ("Glyph Number").

Choosing Glyphs

When first opened, the glyph display will show the first compound glyph in the font. Slider allows you to choose a glyph to edit by any of three methods:

• Adjusting the scroll bar underneath the glyph display
• Clicking on the Previous or Next buttons
• Typing a new glyph index into the "Glyph Number" field.

Slider does not allow you to select non-compound glyphs from the font. If you enter a glyph index which does not correspond to a compound glyph, Slider will present the first compound glyph in the font instead.

Positioning Accents

The current offset of the accent component is shown, in Font Units, in the "X -" and "Y Shift funits" displays: you can manually reposition the glyph by typing a new offset into one or both of these boxes.

As the origin of each glyph is at the bottom left, the following sign conventions apply:

X Shift Sign	Accent horizontal displacement
Negative	Left
Positive	Right

Y Shift Sign	Accent vertical displacement
Negative	Down
Positive	Up

The arrow keys will move the accent around the glyph, in single Font Unit increments. If you hold the Shift key, the accent will move by 10 Font Units each time.

Alternatively, you can drag the accent around the glyph using the mouse: just click on the component part (the accent) and drag it to a new position. When using the mouse, holding down the Shift key will limit the movement of the accent to either the horizontal or vertical axes.

Only the accents can be moved in a compound glyph, never the base glyph.

Accents cannot be swapped around using Slider: for example, if you're editing an A-macron glyph, you cannot swap the macron component glyph for any other glyph.

Menu Commands

File Menu

Slider's File menu is typical of any Macintosh application.

The "Revert" option will revert the entire font.

The "Print..." option is used to produce a full-page printout of the current glyph for proofing purposes.

Edit Menu

The "Goto Glyph" option is identical in function to typing a glyph value into the "Glyph Number" field on the Glyph Editor window.

Options Menu

The "Highlighting" option allows the highlighting box surrounding, that current active accent, to be hidden.

The "Next Accent" and "Previous Accent" allows to cycle through the different accents in a multi-accent glyph.

The "Background Glyph" allows another glyph to be shown in the background in gray. This can assist in the placement of accents. The background glyph can be toggle on and off by the menu option or the keyboard shortcut Command-B. Any glyph in the font can be used as the background glyph.

As shown in this example above:

Ncedilla is placed in the background.

Kcedilla is in front and the position of the cedilla can be place in reference to the Ncedilla glyph.

 

The "Baseline" displays the baseline for this glyph.

The "Ascender & Descender" displays the ascender and descender lines for this glyph.

The "Glyph Bounding Box" displays the glyph bounding box for this glyph.

Help Menu

The "Slider Help..." option will display a dialog with the basic functions explained.

Technical Notes

Slider operates on the 'addg' (Added Glyphs) table in fonts that have been processed by the AAT Font Tool application. Slider cannot add this table to a font, nor can it add entries to this table. This is why you need to use a tool such as AAT Font Tool to add the added glyphs table to a font before using Slider.

Slider supports multi-accent glyphs. Slider also supports fonts that contain scaled transform information.