Property bar

Table of Contents

• Property bar
  • Font window Property bar
  • Glyph window Property bar
    • Default
    • When one or more points are selected
    • When a guideline (or hint) is active
    • When an Anchor or Pin is active
    • When the Ellipse or Rectangle tool is active
    • When the Guides tool is active
    • When the Brush tool is active
    • When the Free Transform tool is active
    • When the Metrics tool is active
    • When the Kerning tool is active
    • When the Text tool is active
    • When the Matchmaker tool is active

The Font Window is where you work with the font’s glyph set. The Glyph Window is where you enter your text, edit glyphs and metrics. Both windows have a Property bar.

Font window Property bar

The Font window Property bar is static, i.e. it remains the same and doesn’t change.

On its left are four icons:

Icon	Function
	Opens the Font Info Dialog Box
	Toggle for History sidebar
	Toggle for Table Area
	Toggle for List sidebar

These are followed by dropdown menus to control the Caption of each glyph’s cell (and the contents of the List view), the View Mode (a “mask” for your glyph set like in FLS5) and accompanying Filter Selector, and the Sort (allowing you to dynamically sort the Table and List view). On the right of the Property bar, you can set the glyph’s Flag (the color highlight which in FontLab Studio 5 was called “Mark”), and you can use the Search box to limit the glyphs that you see in the Font window.

The same Property bar also appears in the Font Map panel.

Glyph window Property bar

The Glyph window Property bar is dynamic, i.e. it is context-sensitive. Depending on your work context (the currently used tool or on the current selection), this section will show a different “context bar” that displays just the information you are most likely to need in that situation. Even though this Property bar is dynamic, it has some static elements on the far left and right. On the left:

Icon	Function
	Opens the Content Sidebar, where you can pick texts available from your Texts library.
	Shows spacing controls, which enables or disables the controls for glyph metrics and kerning editing in the Glyph window.
	Shows kerning, which enables or disabled kerning in the Glyph window. If this toggle is enabled, you can both see and edit kerning in the Glyph window.
	Shows mark attachments, which enables previewing of mark attachments in the Glyph window if it is turned on.

This is followed by dropdown menus:
1. Font, which that allows you to switch the current window’s contents to a different font, keeping the same text.
2. Glyph, which allows you to switch the currently active glyph to a differ “related” glyph. The list of “related” glyphs is created by FontLab using some built-in automation.

On the right end, the Glyphs window property bar contains the same Flag and Search box as the Font window. Note that the result of using this Search box will replace the entire text of the current Glyphs window.

The middle section of the Glyphs window property bar is dynamic. Some property bars are “editable” i.e. you can view and edit information there, and your edits will actually be applied to the font. Some context bars are “read-only” for now, i.e. they will display information correctly, but if you edit anything there, your changes will not be applied. And some are “stubs” — that is, they only show some default information not really specific to your font.

Default

When nothing is selected in the Glyph window and a glyph is active, the context bar displays the following:

1. Unicode which shows the Unicode codepoint of the active glyph. Clicking the Unicode codepoint, opens the dropdown that lets you see a system-provided image for that Unicode character along with its Unicode name, script and category.

2. Shapes Count

3. Contours Count

4. Points Count (including off-curve points)

!!!Note
The number of Elements, Contours and Points shown here are similar to the Glyph Properties panel in FLS5. The difference is that FLS5 shows nodes count.

1. Bounding Box, which is a read-only property, shows left and bottom, and top and right coordinates of the bounding box of the current layer.

2. Width and Height of the contours in the layer.

3. Flatten Glyphs, which can be used to expand all element transformations and filters, disconnect element references and combine contours to one element for all elements in the current layer. This operation can also be done from Contour actions.

4. Remove Overlap merges overlapping contours, removes unnecessary orphan nodes and open contours.

5. Tags dropdown, where you can assign tags to glyphs.

When one or more points are selected

When one or more points, nodes and handles, are selected, the context bar displays the following:

1. Name of the node, if it has one. This is only displayed for points, not handles.

2. Corner/Smooth Toggle, which lets you change the type of node between corner and smooth. The current type of the node will be shown as selected. This toggle is disabled if the selected node is a handle.

3. Make Genius (G2-smooth) will push the selected node to the position calculated automatically between handles in such a way that the curve stays as smooth as possible. Alt-click on this button to make the selected node a Genius node.

4. Break contour splits the contour at the selected point

5. Unlink corners breaks contours at each corner into separate overlapping sections, and contours each former corner vector a little such that they cross. More details about this operation can be found here.

6. Offset transformations for the selected point are available here. Use the nine-point box to choose the origin of the transformation. If the icon is visible, the selected point’s X and Y coordinates are shown. You can enter a new value for one or both coordinates and press Return to move the point to that absolute position. If you click the icon, it turns into . Now you can offset the selected point relative to its original position. Enter the offset values and press Return.

7. The Width and the Height of the selection, the “bounding box” of the selected items. These can be used to quickly scale the selection.

When a guideline (or hint) is active

When a guidelines/hint is active, the Property bar displays the following:

1. Name of the guideline/hint, if it has one.

2. Lock toggle that can lock a guideline/hint. A locked guideline can be renamed, but it cannot be moved.

3. Unlink from node unlinks a guideline from a node or a link from both linked nodes.

4. Position of the selected guideline/hint; you can enter a new value and hit Return to change its position.

5. Width of the selected guideline/hint; you can enter a new value and hit Return to change its with.

6. Location Expression can be used for positioning the selected guideline using math expressions and other guidelines, anchors or pins.

7. Tags dropdown, where you can assign tags to your guidelines and hints.

8. Color tag can be used to assign a color of your choice to the selected guideline/hint.

When an Anchor or Pin is active

When an Anchor or Pin is active, the Property bar shows the following:

1. Name of the Anchor or Pin.

2. Preview cloud toggle can be used to enable viewing the “cloud” of anchored elements.

3. Coordinates of the selected Anchor or Pin are show. This is read-only information.

4. Location Expression, which can be used for linking the selected Anchor or pin to guidelines or to other anchors or pins.

5. Tags dropdown, where you can assign tags to anchors and pins.

When the Ellipse or Rectangle tool is active

When the Ellipse or Rectangle tool are selected, the following are displayed in the Property bar:

1. Geometric/Curved toggle is only enabled when the Ellipse tool is selected. Using this toggle, you can choose to create a geometric ellipse or a “curved” ellipse which uses the Tension parameter specified in Font Info.

2. The nine-point box; and fields for X and Y coordinates, and width and height can be used to enter values for creating a new shape. Enter the values and hit Return or press the Num + button to create the shape.

When the Guides tool is active

This Property bar becomes visible when the Guides tool is active, and shows the following when the tool is used to measure a distance or create a guideline:

1. Location is the absolute position (the x and y coordinates) of the pointer (the end of the metering line) relative to the glyph zero point
2. Delta is the horizontal and vertical distance from the beginning to the end of the metering line
3. Angle is an angle of the line counting clockwise from 12 hours
4. Length is the geometric distance from the beginning to the end of the metering line

This behaviour mimics the the FontLab Studio Meter Bar.

When the Brush tool is active

When the Brush tool is active, the context bar displays the following:

1. Simple/Smart Stroke toggle
2. Size slider for the brush.
3. Brush shape dropdown
4. Remove button to remove the brush filter from a smart stroke.
5. Expand button to apply the filter and convert the stroke to final outlines.

When the Free Transform tool is active

When the Free Transform tool is active, which can be done by double-clicking the selected contours or by pressing CmdT, the Property bar shows the following buttons and input fields:

1. Shift left and Shift right.
2. Scale up and Scale down. Using this operation, you can scale your selection proportionally or non-proportionally.
3. Rotate left (CCW) and Rotate right (CW).
4. Rotate left (CCW) and Rotate right (CW).
5. Slant left and Slant right.
6. Horizontal flip and Vertical flip

When the Metrics tool is active

When the Metrics tool is active, the Property bar displays the following:

1. Glyph metrics, i.e. the left sidebearing, right sidebearing and advance width, along with buttons to bind sidebearings and automatically calculate the metrics.

2. Text size

3. Horizontal tracking and vertical tracking

4. Button to access Preview strings

5. Dropdown menu with options to Center on glyph and Lock metrics

6. Button to open Metrics table

7. Button to open Metrics panel

When the Kerning tool is active

When the Kerning tool is active, the Property bar displays the following:

1. Active pair of glyphs/classes with the kerning value between. The “cross” button removes the kerning pair.

2. Text size

3. Horizontal trancking and vertical tracking

4. Button to access Preview strings

5. Dropdown menu with options to Center on glyph and Lock metrics

6. Button to open Metrics table

7. Button to open Kerning panel

When the Text tool is active

When the Text tool is active, the Property bar displays the following:

1. Thumbnail list of glyphs related to the current glyph (i.e. the glyph that precedes the Text Mode’s text cursor). Click any thumbnail to insert the glyph at the cursor, or — to replace your selection in the Glyph window.

2. Find button at the end of the thumbnail list, which, on click, opens Find Glyphs Edit > Find Glyphs dialog that allows you to make a more precise search using different criteria.

3. Case buttons, Text to uppercase and Text to lowercase, that let you change the case of text currently selected (using the text mode cursor), or of all the visible text if there is no selection.

4. Features button, which opens a floating dialog that allows you to apply OpenType features to the entire visible text. You need to have features defined and compiled in the Features panel. The Features checkbox enables feature processing, which will also activate Right-to-Left and script-specific Unicode processing. With the checkbox enabled, you can choose which features should be enabled.

5. Text size selector, which lets you choose a text size from the dropdown menu. The button to its left, Smaller text, and to its right, Larger text, can also be used to modify the size of text in the Glyph window.

6. Tracking and line height selectors that are hidden if they don’t fit within the window width.

7. Texts button that opens a floating text editor for the Text phrases. You can apply any of the phrases to the Glyph window using Text > Next Phrase and Text > Previous Phrase, and using the Pairs and Phrases panel.

8. Auto wrap toggle that can be used to apply or remove wrap to the text in the Glyph window.

9. Text Bar toggle that shows or hides the Text Bar. There, you can edit the “source” of the text that is shown in the Glyph window.

When the Matchmaker tool is active

When the Matchmaker tool is active, the context bar contains buttons for the tool options and actions.

1. Allow to clean up segments toggle allows FontLab to remove nodes from the segment to match masters.

2. Match masters width toggle compensates the difference in width of the masters’ designs making the view more compact.

3. Match Masters (Glyph > Match Masters (CtrlM)) tries to automatically match masters for the whole glyph.

4. Clean Up All Masters calls the Contour > Clean Up operation for all masters.

Note

Most of the properties shown in the context bar are also accessible in the dedicated panels: Anchors & Pins, Brush, Glyph, Guideline, Node, Transform.