Rotating Alternates

Vasil Stanev

I am searching for the code that is used in a font for the following:
I want to have a font that imitates handwriting, with 3-5 alternative versions of all Latin characters, and two consecutive alternates of a letter never appear one after the other - just like the human hand rarely writes the exact same letter twice. Does the size of the set matter in regard to the code?

PabloImpallari

Grab the OT code from Caveat (3 alternates of each letter)
https://github.com/googlefonts/caveat

Simon Cozens

Think about the general pattern of what you want: if an alternate appears after the same glyph, switch it for the next alternate in the set.

Then write (or script!) that:

# When you see <alternate> <alternate>, replace the second one by <next alternate>
#
# sub <alternate> <alternate>' by <next alternate>;
#
# So for all alternates a.alt1, a.alt2, a.alt3, etc.:
sub a.alt1 a.alt1' by a.alt2;
sub a.alt2 a.alt2' by a.alt3;
sub a.alt3 a.alt3' by a.alt1;

Craig Eliason

https://glyphsapp.com/learn/features-part-3-advanced-contextual-alternates (potentially helpful even if you don’t use Glyphs)

https://opentypecookbook.com/common-techniques/ (scroll down to Fun Stuff)

Craig Eliason

PabloImpallari said:

Grab the OT code from Caveat (3 alternates of each letter) https://github.com/googlefonts/caveat

Just curious, would taking the OpenType code from an OFL font require using that license for the new font?

Igor Petrovic

Ulrike Rausch's talk on Typo Labs 2018 deals with that matter:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCviu05n_XA

Vasil Stanev

PabloImpallari said:

Grab the OT code from Caveat (3 alternates of each letter)
https://github.com/googlefonts/caveat

Actually I don't know which of the files is the code and how to put it inside my font. A little help for a luddite?

Johannes Neumeier

Vasil Stanev said:

PabloImpallari said:

Grab the OT code from Caveat (3 alternates of each letter)
https://github.com/googlefonts/caveat

Actually I don't know which of the files is the code and how to put it inside my font. A little help for a luddite?

This seems to be the relevant section of the feature code; you need the class definitions from above it, too, of course.