How starting "s" can be define so it typed as an alternate instead of space?

Tanveer Qureshi

Hi, 
I am new to this situation. I included "s" as a contextual alternate but when I check this on Adobe Illustrator and MS Word the starting "s" or newline "s" is typed as normal instead of alternate "s.alt". I think I am missing something. Anyone can help me with this?

Kind Regards
Tanveer

Craig Eliason

What font editor are you using? What does the Feature coding look like?

Matthijs Herzberg

Hi Tanveer, could you copy-paste your calt feature code here?

Tanveer Qureshi

Hi, 
I am using FontLab 5. The code I am using is written below. Thanks!

feature aalt{

  feature init;

  feature calt;

} aalt;

feature init { 

    sub s by uniE001;

} init;

feature calt { 

   sub s by uniE001;

} calt;

Chris Lozos

You need the foot mark, perhaps but do you not also need the space character first to make it the initial s?

Craig Eliason

You'll find some helpful info in this old thread.
I wouldn't use init, and you may have to rewrite your calt coding using "ignore sub." Essentially, it's easier for the renderer to understand where you *don't* want the substitution to take place since it doesn't recognize new lines. So instead of saying "switch only this one and that one," your code will say "except for all of these situations, switch them all."

Tanveer Qureshi

Hi Craig,
This make sense. Where can I study ignore sub to use it? This may be hard for me as understanding but I will try if this works. 

Best
Tanveer

André G. Isaak

Try using this instead:

feature calt {
   ignore sub @Letters s';
   sub s' by uniE001;
} calt;

Defining @Letters is left as an exercise for the reader. Depending on what the alternate looks like, you may or may not want to include things like hyphens in this class.

I'd get rid of your 'init' feature altogether.

Tanveer Qureshi

Thank you so much André. This really works for me. Cheers!