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== Font Topics ==
=== Guard Space ===
Graphite introduces guard space around diacritics. Sometimes a diacritic is
wider than its base and the diacritic is in danger of crashing into clusters on
either side of it. To stop that happening, graphite allows the font designer to
signal that they want guard space to be ensured around a diacritic. For example,
if a diacritic glyph is designed with a positive left side bearing and a
positive right side bearing, the graphite engine will ensure that the cluster
honours those side bearings for the diacritic. Of course, if the base character
is wider than the diacritic, then no guard space is needed.
The basic principle for cluster adjustment is that if a diacritic has a non-zero
advance and after positioning, the advance of the diacritic is greater than the
advance of the base then the advance of the base is increased to be the same as
the positioned advance of the diacritic. Likewise if the origin of the diacritic
is to the left of the origin of the base character, then the cluster is adjusted
so that the origin of the diacritic is now where the origin of the base
character was and the base character is moved to the right. Notice that this
only happens if the origin of the diacritic is to the left of where it is
attached or the advance is non-zero.
In the following image, we use a dotless i with a combining tilde over it, which
is wider than the dotless i. The four scenarios show how positioning the tilde
and setting its advance controls the origin and advance of the attached cluster:
image::guardspace.png[]
Each line shows the two glyphs as they are designed with the origin and advance
(if any). The third element on the line is the combined cluster. Again the
origin and advance for the cluster is shown with solid lines and any subglyph
origins and advances that don't coincide with a solid line, are shown dotted.
Notice that we don't show the implied attachment point used to attach the tilde
to the dotless i.
The first line shows the diacritic as if it were a full base character, with
positive left and right side bearings. When the glyphs attach the origin and the
advance of the dotless i (shown as dotted lines) are pushed out to the origin
and advance of the diacritic. Notice that graphite uses the wider advance and
origin regardless of which component of the cluster they come from.
The second line shows the other extreme. Here no guard space is inserted. The
diacritic is to the left of the origin and the advance is zero. The cluster
origin and advance are taken from the base glyph. The dotted line shows the
origin and advance of the diacritic.
These two lines are the most common cases that people want to use for rendering
diacritics and whether space is automatically inserted to avoid collisions. The
next two are rarely used but help to explain how the mechanism works.
The third line has guard space on the left only. For this the diacritic is drawn
to the right of the origin but the advance width is set to 0. The effect is that
guard space is inserted on the left, because there is a positive left side
bearing (or more precisely the origin of the diacritic is to the left of the
origin of the base when the two glyphs combine). Thus the dotless i origin
(shown as a dotted line) is pushed out. Actually the whole cluster is pushed to
the right so that the origin of the diacritic is aligned with where the origin
of the base glyph was.
The fourth line gives guard space only after the diacritic. In this case, the
diacritic is drawn to the left of the origin, and so no left guard space can
occur, since the origin of the diacritic is to the right of the dotless i. The
diacritic has also been drawn so that it finishes at the origin. This ensures
that the guard space to the right is the same as the advance. It need not be.
The cluster has the same origin as the base glyph. The base glyph advance is
shown as a dotted line, which while not necessarily coinciding with the origin
of the diacritic, will be close. Finally the advance for the cluster is the
advance from the diacritic.
Since it is possible to change the advance width of a glyph (or at least for a
particular instance of a glyph or slot), it is possible to dynamically control
some of the guard space mechanism within GDL. It is possible to use a rule to
change from both to or from left only. Likewise it is possible to use a rule to
change from none to or from right only. But, unfortunately, it is not possible
to shift glyphs within their drawn space and so switch between both and none,
purely from GDL.
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