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FontLab version 6.0.7.6772»

18 July 2018

FontLab 6.0.7 adds several major features: automatic composite glyphs with Auto glyphs, automatic in-context glyph editing with Cousins, pixel-perfect rendering inside the Glyph window, better geometric transformations, and a new Text mode property bar. It also includes improvements in handling Elements, glyph names and Unicode, FontAudit, contour editing, plus user interface tweaks and many bug fixes.

Major changes and new features»

Better Glyph window rendering»

The rendering of the Glyph window is now sharper. The results are most visible on screens with a low pixel density (non-Retina). The improvement also affects high-density or Retina screens, but less obviously.

In Preferences > Glyph window > Outline thickness, you can choose how thick glyph outlines should look in the Glyph window. The default is “normal” but you can make it “thin” or “thick.” (For an even thinner outline, also turn off ==View > Show > Smooth Outline).

Pixel-perfect rendering»

The most important change, however, is Preferences > Glyph window > Pixel-perfect rendering (on by default). When this is on, the rendering of all outlines (especially with View > Show > Smooth Outline turned on) and also of all nodes, guides, sidebearings, font metrics and the crosshair will be rounded to full screen pixels, so all lines drawn in the Glyph window will be sharper, especially on “non-Retina” screens. If you’ve ever found the contents of your Glyph window “blurry,” pixel-perfect rendering will make you happy!

Scoreboard»

We’ve improved the presentation of the Scoreboard that we’ve introduced in 6.0.6. Turn on View > Scoreboard to see a movable, resizable numeric readout that will show coordinates for points, anchors, guidelines etc. as you’re moving them with your pointer. The Scoreboard now uses a monospace font and renders sharper.

Cousins: automatic in-context glyph editing»

FontLab has a new View option: Cousins. When you’re designing a glyph in a Glyph window, enable View > Cousins to see a “stack” of visually related glyphs in the background.

For example, the glyphs “b p þ” are visually related, and so are “c e o”. So when you’re working on a glyph in one of these sets, it may be useful to see the others if they are present in the font. In a way, Cousins are like a dynamic mask layer, that automatically provides visual context for your current glyph. In FontLab Studio 5, the equivalent of Cousins were called “shape groups.”

In Preferences > Cousins, you can decide whether Cousins should be rendered filled (with adjustable transparency), or as outlines. You can also decide how the Cousins should be placed in relation to the current glyph: aligned to the LSB, RSB or the center, and optionally shifted by a X/Y unit distance. With Use metrics, the Cousins will be placed to the left or right of your current glyph, shifted by their advance width (this works best if you only have one glyph in your Glyph window).

In Preferences, you can define which glyphs are “cousins” by listing them (a default list is provided), using space-separated Unicode characters or glyph names, one cousin group per line. Enable Double-click to edit the glyph if you want to be able to quickly switch between the Cousins that you’re editing.

Layers and Masters panel»

The Layers and Masters panel has been redesigned: its top section now has a Show layer properties toggle. Enable it to expand the bottom panel section that includes:

  • An editable text field for the layer’s name. You can also edit the layer’s name right in the layers list by double-clicking it.
  • The Auto layer toggle (that looks like “building blocks”) with an editable text field for the glyph generation recipe. You can use this to turn the glyph into an Auto glyph (see below).
  • The layer’s transparency slider that controls the layer’s visibility within the FontLab user interface. This does not affect the font export.

Auto glyphs: automatic, live composite glyphs»

This build introduces the concept of an auto glyph: an automatic composite glyph. Auto glyphs are automatically generated and will automatically update whenever you change the contours, element positions, anchors or metrics in any of the component glyphs.

To declare a glyph an “auto glyph” in a particular layer or master, turn on the Auto layer toggle (“building blocks” icon) of a glyph’s layer or master in the top-right part of the Glyph window’s property bar, or in the properties section of the Layers and Masters panel.

With “Auto layer” enabled, the glyph becomes an auto glyph in that layer. FontLab will now use a special glyph generation “recipe” to automatically build the content of the auto layer, and will keep it up-to-date. It will insert the appropriate component glyphs along with the metrics of the base glyphs, will add the glyph guides and it will smartly inherit anchors from the component glyphs. If the component glyphs have anchors, these anchors will be used to position the mark components. So an auto glyph is a “live composite glyph.”

Generate Glyphs, composite glyphs and auto glyphs»

The Auto layer is a property of a particular layer in a particular glyph, so you may have some masters that are auto layers, and some masters that are “manual” layers. If any layer of a glyph is an auto layer, we refer to that glyph as an “auto glyph”. Auto glyphs receive the auto virtual tag, so you can search for them in the Font window or show them in the Classes panel.

In the Font > Generate Glyphs dialog, there is a new checkbox: Create auto layers. If you turn it on, FontLab will generate auto layers (in all masters or the active master only, your choice). The resulting glyphs will have auto layers where you cannot change the element positions, the advance width, the sidebearings, the glyph guides or the anchors. But if you change the contours, metrics, glyph guides or anchor positions in any of the original glyphs, the auto layer that uses them as components will automatically update.

If you turn off the Create auto layers checkbox but keep Link as references on, FontLab will generate “composite glyph layers with references.” In the generated composite glyph layers, the content (contours) of each inserted element reference (component) will update when you edit the original glyphs — but the positioning, metrics, anchors and guides will be independent of the primary glyphs and will not be automatically updated.

If you also turn off Link as references, the resulting composite glyph layer will not use references, so each element will be fully independent of any primary glyphs.

If you turn off the Auto layer toggle in any existing auto glyph, the layer becomes a composite glyph layer with references, where you can add or remove elements, guides or anchors, change the metrics, draw new shapes and edit the entire content. If you turn on the Auto layer toggle in any existing glyph, the layer will be completely replaced with automatically generated content.

In Preferences > Operations > New Glyphs, if you turn on fill created glyphs with content when available then double-clicking an empty glyph cell in the Font window will create manual layers with references in all font masters, but if you also turn on create auto layers if possible, then auto layers will be created.

How does FontLab know how to fill an auto layer with content?»

When you generate an auto layer, FontLab uses its Generate Glyphs functionality.

FontLab has a built-in alias.dat database that, for a number of “known” glyph names includes “recipes” that define how a given glyph should be generated from component glyphs. If you place your own alias.dat file in the Data subfolder inside FontLab’s user data folder, FontLab will use that instead.

For example, when you generate the Agrave (“À”) glyph, FontLab will try to find the recipe that describes the generation of the Agrave in the alias.dat file. If it finds one or more such recipes, it will:

  • Find the first recipe, and then will find the A base glyph, then find the the grave.case mark glyph, and insert them as components into Agrave glyph. The Agrave glyph will get the advance width of A since that is the base glyph.
  • If any of the component glyphs cannot be found in the font, FontLab will attempt a fallback recipe, which is to insert the A glyph and the gravecomb glyph. If those are not found, it will try A and grave.
  • If none of the recipes give the full result, FontLab will use the last recipe and build the glyph using as many component glyphs as it can find.

Example: If the A base glyph has a top anchor placed somewhere above the letterform, and either the grave.case or the gravecomb mark glyph has a _top anchor placed somewhere below the letterform, then in Agrave, FontLab will position the _top anchor of the mark glyph in the same location as the top anchor of the base glyph. You can use any anchor names as long as the anchor in the mark glyph uses the same name as the one in the base glyph, but with a _ prefix. If the glyphs don’t have matching anchors, FontLab will use the positioning clues encoded in the glyph generation recipe, which in this case will be “horizontally center the grave.case glyph” or “horizontally center the gravecomb glyph and raise it by the difference of the font master’s caps height and x-height.”

All the glyph needs, to be automatically generated, is an appropriate glyph name.

Custom glyph generation recipes»

If FontLab’s alias.dat doesn’t know how to generate your glyph, or if you use a different glyph naming scheme, or if you’d like to provide some positioning clues for your component glyphs, you can use custom glyph generation recipes. These recipes use a special syntax that tells FontLab which components it should add to the glyph, and provides clues where to place them. FontLab can use one of two syntaxes for custom glyph generation recipes:

  • The “legacy” syntax which is compatible with FontLab Studio 5 and can be used in the Generate Glyphs dialog box, in alias.dat and in auto layers
  • The GlyphConstruction syntax which can only be used in Font > Generate Glyphs > Custom (but not in auto layers)

You can use the legacy syntax in the recipe text field next to the Auto layer toggle to specify a custom recipe for that auto layer. Then, FontLab will not look up the glyph name in alias.dat but instead, it will interpret the custom auto layer recipe specified in that text field.

Example: If the Agrave glyph has an auto layer with an empty recipe field, it will use the alias.dat recipe, as described above. But if you enter A+uni0300 in that field, FontLab will use that recipe instead, and build the auto layer from as many component glyphs as it can find in the font.

If FontLab cannot find a component required by a recipe, it will still generate the auto layer, but will print warning in the Output panel. If one glyph’s recipe refers to itself or to a second glyph which in turn refers to the first glyph, FontLab will not generate an auto layer and print a “circular references” error.

The legacy syntax allows you to add a base glyph (which contributes the width) and one or more mark glyphs (e.g. A+dieresiscomb+acutecomb) and to create ligature glyphs (e.g. f_i or 'f_f'_i). You can even shift some components in x and y (but anchor-based positioning will take precedence). Check the details.

So, why not draw acutecomb as a zero-width glyph and make the acute glyph an auto glyph with the custom space+acutecomb recipe, or define one.tnum as an auto glyph with the custom recipe uni2007+one?

Other Generate Glyphs enhancements»

  • Auto layers and composite glyph layers inherit glyph guides from all component glyphs used to generate the layer. For example: glyph guides present in A and in acutecomb will be reproduced in Aacute.

  • Auto layers and composite glyph layers inherit anchors from all component glyphs used to generate the layer, but without duplicated anchors. When FontLab generates the Aringacute manual or auto layer using the A+ringcomb+acutecomb recipe, and all three component glyphs have a top anchor, the final glyph will get the top anchor from acutecomb, placed accordingly. Anchors not present in acutecomb will be inherited from ringcomb, and finally, those not present there, from A.

  • Auto layers and composite glyph layers inherit tags from their base component letters.

  • When you generate glyphs (composite or auto) with Font > Generate Glyphs, you can immediately open them in a new Glyph window for editing. This is controlled by a new checkbox which is on by default.

Text mode»

When Auto Wrap is on, the Text mode now shows where the text will wrap, using a darker background.

Text mode property bar»

We have redesigned the Text mode property bar.

  • In the middle of the Text mode property bar, you now see a brand-new thumbnail list of glyphs related to the current glyph (i.e. the glyph that precedes the Text Mode’s text cursor). Click any thumbnail and the glyph will be inserted at the cursor, or — if you have any glyphs selected in the Glyph window — will replace that selection.
  • The Find button at the end of the thumbnail list opens the Edit > Find Glyphs floating dialog that allows you to make a more precise search using different criteria.
  • To the left of the thumbnail list, there is a text field that shows the name of the current glyph. You can start typing a glyph name into that field and the thumbnail list will show the results. Click any result, and the glyph will be inserted, or hit the Enter key while typing the name, and the first result will be inserted.

To the right of the thumbnail list we have:

  • Two case buttons: Text to uppercase and Text to lowercase. These change the case of text currently selected (using the text mode cursor), or of all visible text if none is selected.
  • The 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.
  • The text size selector for the Glyph window. View > Actual Text Size will show the text in that size, other zoom levels are relative to that size.
  • Tracking and line height selectors. They are hidden if they don’t fit to the window width.
  • The 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.
  • The Auto wrap and Show Text bar toggles.
  • The Flag selector and the universal Search box (hidden if doesn’t fit).

Geometric transformations»

Contour-level vs. element-level transformation»

FontLab can apply geometric transformations on two levels: the element level or the contour level.

  • Element level:

  • You transform the “element box” itself, not “contents of the element box.”

  • The node coordinates inside the element remain untransformed.
  • Transformations applied on the element level are non-destructive; they are visible and editable in the Elements panel.
  • The references to this element remain unaffected (the transformation is only visible in the glyphs where it was applied).

  • In the Gallery panel, elements appear untransformed.

  • Contour level:

  • You transform “the contents of the element box.”

  • The node coordinates inside the element are transformed permanently.
  • The node coordinates are rounded if Contour > Coordinates > Round when Editing is on.
  • All references to the element are affected (the transformation is visible in all composite glyphs).
  • In the Gallery panel, elements appear transformed.

Transform panel in the Glyph window»

If you use the Transform panel in the Glyph window with the Contour tool:

  • Horizontal and vertical flip, shift, scale, rotate and slant will be applied on the contour level:
  • if you’ve selected any or all nodes,
  • if the current element is not referenced in other glyphs (regardless of the node selection),
  • if the current element is referenced in other glyphs but you’ve selected all nodes.
  • Otherwise, those transformations will be applied on the element level.

Transform panel in the Font window»

When you select multiple glyphs in the Font window, enter a value for shift, scale, slant or rotate in the Transform panel, and click Apply, FontLab will check if other glyphs use any of the selected glyphs as references. If this is the case, FontLab will show a dialog box asking if you want to also transform references of the current layer, or if you want to transform selected glyphs only.

This has important implications:

If you choose to apply the transformation to Also references (default), then:

  • FontLab will apply the transformation on the contour level in all selected glyphs.
  • This is similar to how transforming a glyph cell of a contour glyph worked in FontLab Studio 5.

  • Example: Select the A glyph but not Aacute (which uses A as a reference) in the Font window, apply a slant in the Transform panel and choose Also references:

  • The contours of the current A layer will be slanted.

  • The node coordinates will be rounded if Contour > Coordinates > Round when Editing is on.
  • You will also see the result of the slanting in Aacute, but only for the A element — because you’ve transformed “the contents of the element box”, so all references are affected.
  • In the Gallery panel, the element will be slanted.

If you choose to apply the transformation to Selected only, then:

  • For glyphs that are not used as references, FontLab will apply the transformation on the contour level (just like described above).
  • For glyphs that are used as references, FontLab will apply the transformation on the element level.

  • Example: Select the A glyph but not Aacute (which uses A as a reference) in the Font window, apply a slant in the Transform panel and choose Selected only:

  • The contours of the current A layer will not be slanted. Instead, the element inside the A current glyph layer the will have a non-destructive slant applied (visible in the Elements panel).

  • The same element referenced in Aacute will remain upright.
  • In the Gallery panel, the element will remain upright.

Note: If you select some glyphs in the Font window and use the Transform panel:

  • Horizontal and vertical flip always work on the element level.
  • The dialog box will only appear if the contour-level (Also references) shift, scale, rotation or slant would affect glyphs that you haven’t selected.
  • If you select all glyphs, or you select the composite glyphs that use certain references and all the source glyphs for these references, FontLab will perform the transformation on the contour level, and will also shift the elements in composite glyphs according to the transformation.
  • If you only select composite glyphs but not the sources of their references, FontLab will perform the transformation on the element level (equivalent to transforming TrueType or UFO components in composite glyphs).

Transformations in the Actions dialog»

When you transform glyphs via Tools > Actions > Basics (Scale, Shift, Slant or Rotate), FontLab will behave as if you’ve chosen the “Selected only” transformation. It will apply the transformation on the contour level if it can, and will use element-level transformation only if contour-level transformation would affect glyphs that you haven’t selected.

Other improvements»

User interface»

Compact Toolbar»

The toolbar is more compact, so it fits better on smaller screens. It is also smarter: if it does not fully fit on screen, it hides the the Matchmaker and TrueType hinting tools first, and then the View toggles.

Glyph window property bar»

  • With the Preferences > Editing > Glyph window property bar setting, you can now decide whether the property bar of a Glyph window should be located at the top or at the bottom of the window. You may find a better visual balance of the window when the property bar is at the bottom.

  • The Glyph window property bar now first shows the font, then the layer/master switcher, and then the current glyph name. The layer/master switcher no longer moves around when you switch between different glyphs.

Brush tool property bar»

The dropdown list of the brush tool sizes in the Property bar for the Brush tool now includes several standard sizes in addition to sizes that match the font stems defined in Font Info.

Elements»

  • When View > Element Frame is on, the current element now shows a vertical line that goes through its center when you use the Contour tool and the element is locked, or when you use the Element tool. This is similar how FontLab Studio 5 displayed the active component.
  • Element guides are now also visible for grouped elements.
  • Element > Image > Interpret SVG is now called Make SVG Editable. This more clearly describes the operation. When you import an SVG, FontLab keeps it in its native form, with gradients, transparencies and all sorts of tricks. You can scale and rotate such an SVG but you cannot modify the contours inside it. But when you make an SVG editable, FontLab will convert it into FontLab native elements, composed of images and editable contours. As this conversion is not perfect, in some cases the results may be unexpected, and some properties such as gradients will be lost in conversion. But you will then be able to edit the individual contours.

FontAudit»

  • Improved algorithm for FontAudit fixing weak inflections. FontAudit now tries adjusting the curve through handle lengths and balancing. (FontAudit no longer adds nodes to fix a weak inflection; previously this often made things worse rather than better.)
  • Open contours are now highlighted with a lilac color instead of the circle used in the previous release.
  • FontAudit will not perform tests for missing extrema, nearly-horizontal or nearly-vertical lines on an element that is rotated or slanted.

Preview panel»

  • If the Content selector in the Preview panel’s sidebar is set to Current and you type in some custom text into the panel, the selector automatically switches to Custom, so your custom text is shown even if you change the text in the Glyph window. Switch it back to Current to reflect the contents of the Glyph window.
  • If you turn on Show glyph names (the “abc” icon), a glyph names bar will appear at the bottom of the panel. Now you can enter text there, using the glyphtext notation (character, /glyphname or \uUnicode).

Variations»

  • FontLab can add, rename and remove guidelines across masters as long as the corresponding option is on in Preferences > Variations > Synchronize in matching masters. Note: Unnamed glyph guidelines cannot be removed across masters. You might consider immediately naming any guidelines created across masters (after selecting the guideline, use the Guide panel, or the property bar of the Glyph window).

  • When you open a VFC or VFJ font with multiple layers, FontLab will check if any of the font masters has a suspiciously low number of glyphs while another layer has a large glyph set. If this is the case, FontLab will offer to let you decide which layer should be used as a font master, and allows you to rename the new master.

Glyph names and Unicode»

  • FontLab prevents you from assigning the same Unicode to two or more glyphs, and provides a warning dialog to help you deal with the conflict. (Previously, such duplicated Unicode values were possible, and could cause unexpected glyph renaming/reencoding on export.)

  • In the Glyph > Rename Glyph dialog, if you enter and accept a new glyph name, and the name change should also change the Unicode codepoint, a new Unicode will be assigned as well (e.g. when you change the glyph name from B to D or to uni4719).

  • If you drag a Font window glyph cell for a glyph with a uniXXXX-style name to cell that has a different Unicode, the glyph will be automatically renamed to reflect the target Unicode.

TrueType Smoothing (gasp table)»

Handling of the gasp table settings that are available in FontInfo > Other Values > TrueType Hinting and Smoothing is improved:

  • FontLab now correctly adds a gasp table record with bit 1 off (no smoothing) at the PPM specified in the No smoothing up to PPM setting if that PPM is >0.
  • FontLab now correctly adds a gasp table record with bit 3 off (no symmetric ClearType smoothing) at the PPM specified in No vertical smoothing up to PPM setting. If that PPM is 0, the actual PPM will be auto-calculated.
  • FontLab now correctly imports the PPM values for No smoothing up to PPM and No vertical smoothing up to PPM when reading the gasp table records from TTF, VFB and UFO.

Python installation on Windows»

On Windows 64-bit systems, it is now possible keep FontLab Studio 5 with the 32-bit Python installed and, in addition, install the 64-bit version of FontLab along with the 64-bit version of Python. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Python can co-exist now.

  1. When you install the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version of FontLab for Windows for the first time, you can configure the path at which its respective 64-bit or 32-bit Python is installed.
  2. If you already have 32-bit Python installed, and you install the 32-bit Python using the FontLab installer, your existing 32-bit Python install will be overwritten regardless of the selected path. Similarly, if you already have 64-bit Python installed, and you install the 64-bit Python using the FontLab installer, your existing 64-bit Python install will be overwritten regardless of the selected path.
  3. 32-bit Python and 64-bit Python are now treated independently, so they may co-exist in the system. For example, you can install the 64-bit Python 2.7 in the C:\Python27 folder and install the 32-bit Python 2.7 in C:\Python27_x86 folder. FontLab Studio 5 (which is 32-bit), FontLab 32-bit and FontLab 64-bit can all co-exist and use the proper Python version.
  4. When you install FontLab for Windows in the “silent” mode, the installer doesn’t install Python. You should install it separately, if needed.

Bug fixes»

Transformations»

  • Path direction remains unchanged, when you use the Transform panel or Tools > Transform menu to flip/mirror a glyph. Previously, when nothing was selected and the whole glyph was affected, path direction would be reversed.

  • Element transformations are more consistently tracked in the History panel, and updated correctly in the Font window. Undo works more consistently with element transformations, no matter how they were applied.

  • Element > Expand Transformation can be applied to selected cells in the Font window. Elements having references with different transformations applied are unaffected.

  • Rotating glyphs 180° in the Font window (using the Transform panel on selected glyph cells) no longer changes sidebearings.

  • Transformation of multiple selected glyphs in the Font window was improved to avoid “double” transformations.

Contour editing in the Glyph window»

  • If Preview Rounding is on, moving one handle of a smooth node that is at a non-integer position no longer causes the other handle to change its length.

  • You can now Alt-drag a retracted handle (a zero-length handle that is on top of a node) from a sharp, smooth or tangent node of a curve segment, not just from a sharp node.

  • When you retract a handle by ShiftAlt-click, the contour updates immediately.

  • When you convert a node from smooth to sharp via double-click, the node maintains its most recent sharp handle positions.

  • If a curve segment has one or both adjacent nodes as “tangent” nodes, Alt-drag on the curve does not changes the tangent node handle direction; it only affects handle length.

  • When you retract a handle, further operations on neighboring nodes and handles no longer “corrupt” the display of contour and fill.

  • Alt-drag of TrueType contour with inflection no longer “corrupts” the display of contour and fill.

  • The large cross cursor (Preferences > Editing > Show cross) updates properly while you are sliding a node via AltShift-drag.

  • Deleting selected points with the Backspace key removes all the points, even if one is a contour’s startpoint.

  • Free marquee/selection of adjacent glyphs works, even when the current glyph layer is empty [Windows-only bug]

  • Doing Contour > Align no longer moves handles to zero position.

  • The Text Bar is updated correctly after results from the Search box are inserted into a Glyph window.

  • Changes from the Brush panel applied to a contour drawn with Brush tool: changes can be undone, and appear in the History panel.

  • Remove Overlap now gives correct results in some complex cases involving both interior counters and three or more contours, when some of those contours touch without overlapping.

Smart Corners»

  • Preserving corner tension when converting smart corners to non-smart curves with Apply Smart Corner. In Font Info > Master Properties > Font Dimensions two settings control the appearance of all smart corners in a font master: Corner Tension defines the tension of the smart corners (0 are completely flat corners, 60 is the default, 100 is quite rectangular round corners), and Ink trap width controls the width of the ink traps (2 is default). Previously, the values defined there only worked in the preview, while the default values were used when you converted the smart corners into plain contours using Apply Smart Corner. Now the correct values are used when you apply a smart corner.

  • Pasting contours to an element with Smart corners is fixed so that the pasted contour can still be selected.

  • Contour > Remove Smart Corners works on all selected elements, not just the current element.

Rulers, Guides, zooming, measurement»

  • Rulers now update instantly when you change the zoom, without any lag.

  • Zoom-in and zoom-out using Alt-scrollwheel when the Pen tool is active doesn’t cause a crash.

  • Quick measurement line measures the stem thickness on the current layer correctly, even when the mask layer is visible.

  • We now use the term “guide” more consistently throughout the UI (never “guideline”)

  • Element guides no longer show incorrect angle values in the Property bar, nor present unexpected results when you edit their Property bar values.

  • When the selection includes an Element guide, movements made with Cmd-arrow keys still apply the multiplier (defined in Preferences > Distances).

  • Guides using expressions with the width parameter are created correctly, and update instantly.

  • Tabbing between fields in the Guides panel is faster, and the tab order is corrected.

Elements»

  • Creating an element using New Element and then drawing with Rectangle, Ellipse, Pen, Pencil, or Rapid tool no longer leaves any extra empty elements in the glyph.

  • Copying a contour, and pasting it as an element into a new empty glyph, then editing it, no longer causes redraw problems during editing.

  • With multiple Elements selected, the arrow (cursor) keys still work to move them.

  • With the Element tool active, click, hold and drag correctly creates a copy of the contour instead of a reference.

  • Element rotation value does not change randomly when switching between fields in the Elements panel.

  • The command Element > Combine Contours to Element had its name adjusted (“to Element” instead of “to Elements”) as the result is always a single element.

  • Doing Element > Remove Filter on an Element referenced by others no longer unlinks those references.

  • The dialogs for Element > Add Element Reference and Element > Replace Element now remember the last options you used.

  • Combine Contours to Element operation now preserves Smart corners without applying them.

  • When Preview Rounding is on, decimal values entered in the Elements panel are converted to integer values upon leaving focus.

  • The commands =Element > Arrange > Send to Back= (=Cmd+Shift+[=) and =Element > Arrange > Bring to Front= (=Cmd+Shift+[=) can be used more than once within the same glyph without undoing the previous “Arrange.”

Anchors and Pins»

  • The positions of pins and anchors are updated on the Sketchboard when you drag them.

  • When a pin is pasted from one element to another, there is no lag before it is visible.

  • When an anchor is copied from one glyph and pasted to another, it remains an anchor instead of being converted to a pin.

  • Pins no longer incorrectly replicate across Elements.

  • Moving anchors using arrows + Cmd key now uses the correct multiplier (ten times the Shift+arrow value defined in Preferences > Distances).

  • Unchecking the Use anchors checkbox in Font > Generate Glyphs dialog now correctly disables use of anchors.

Generate Glyphs»

  • The glyphs for the characters ĢĶķĻļŅņŖŗȘșŢţ are now always generated using the uni0326 or commaaccent diacritic glyphs, regardless of whether the glyph names are in the format of Gcommaaccent or uni0122.

  • Some characters that formerly incorrectly got cedilla accents when auto-generated, now get the correct commaaccent.

  • The glyphs Eth, Dcroat and uni0189 are now generated correctly.

Metrics and Kerning»

  • When you bind sidebearings, they are updated instantly when elements are moved (for example, glyphs composed of multiple elements with pins). You no longer need to use the Update Metrics command in such cases.

  • The Measurement line can be moved, and turned off, in all editing modes.

  • When the Measurement Line is visible:

  • sidebearing values shown in the Glyph panel are now correct.

  • the Metrics Table shows the correct sidebearing values in all modes (metrics, kerning, and editing contours).

  • Changes made to font metrics (ascender, descender, caps height and x-height) in the Glyph window by dragging can be Undone.

  • Accessing the Adjust kerning dialog from the pop-up (“hamburger“) menu of the Kerning panel works again.

  • Automatic metrics linking (Font > Link Glyph Metrics…) is smarter about which glyphs it picks to link to.

  • Changing the background color for the Kerning mode in Preferences > Spacing is saved correctly.

  • Kerning some glyphs containing bitmap images does not crash.

Variations & Layers»

  • Building a glyph by manually adding elements now affects only the current master/layer. Other masters/layers do not get added elements.

  • Variations compatibility options in Preferences > Variations are now off by default, so editing one layer does not automatically affect other layers in a Variable Font.

  • When you duplicate a layer:

  • Expressions used at glyph-level (such as in anchors or glyph guides) are fully preserved.

  • No unexpected additional pins appear.

  • Position of the Remove Layer dialog was adjusted to always fit window boundaries.

  • Lock, service, and wireframe options for layers work correctly in the Layers panel, even when the panel is docked horizontally and the names of the layers are very long.

Font window»

  • When you turn off a filter on the Font window, your default sorting criterion (specified in Preferences > Font window) is applied.

  • When the glyph name implies one Unicode (e.g. “uniE0123”) but the actual assigned Unicode is different (e.g. “E0765”), this no longer “confuses” the Font window into showing glyphs in an incorrect order, or multiple times.

  • Copy-pasting a glyph in the Font window, and then Undoing it, no longer erases guides. (Yes, this was the most bizarre bug found and fixed in this release.)

  • In Preferences > Font window, three incorrect tooltips were removed.

  • Fixed a delay in Font window preview when new contours are pasted in a glyph.

  • When a VFC file is opened, the Font window sorts glyph cells correctly, according to the view settings (Encoding, Codepage, Script etc.) saved in the VFC file.

Compiling and decompiling OpenType features»

  • When compiling OpenType Layout features that have no languagesystem definitions, FontLab automatically inserts languagesystem definitions for all Unicode scripts covered by the font’s character set. (This feature was temporarily broken on Mac.)

  • Custom names for stylistic set features which include the quote symbol are compiled correctly.

  • Decompiling the mark feature is improved.

  • When opening OpenType fonts, decompiling GPOS and GSUB tables succeeds with more fonts.

Opening fonts»

  • Opening a VFJ file containing extra spaces and/or tabs no longer causes a crash.

  • Another VFJ-opening crash was fixed.

Saving and exporting fonts»

  • When a custom export profile turns off PostScript autohinting, FontLab no longer ignores this (turning off autohinting is now successful).

  • If you have a Save As dialog and cancel the save, FontLab presents only one warning dialog, no matter how many files would have been generated.

  • FontLab no longer crashes when exporting an OpenType PS (.otf) font instance from certain multiple master fonts.

Other fixes»

  • The Preview panel no longer jumps to the first glyph when you switch editing tools.

  • Applying an Action to a glyph built from multiple elements does not cause a crash.

  • Resetting preferences to default, or applying a saved set of preferences, does not change View options.

  • Using the Text tool on the Sketchboard no longer causes a crash.

  • Undo/redo now works properly for the text strings entered in Preview panel.

  • Live preview (Preferences > Editing > Live preview) is now faster when editing curves with arrow keys

  • Opacity of artwork imported to the Sketchboard and set to zero is correctly remembered, even after the app is relaunched.

  • Tabs no longer “hide” after docking windows. This issue only affected Microsoft Windows users who had Preferences > General > Windows and tabs configuration on the second or third option.

  • FontLab doesn’t hang when opening certain VFC files with multiple Glyph windows opened when you have Preferences > General > Windows and tabs configuration on the third option, Fonts and glyphs open in windows (Windows-only).

  • Switching from the Text tool to the Contour tool no longer opens a new Glyph window unexpectedly. (Windows-only)