Release Notes: FontLab 7.2.0.7644

7 December 2020

The main changes in FontLab 7.2 are described in the previous release notes:

View 7.2.0.7622 Release Notes

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FontLab 7.2 is a free update to all users of FontLab 7.

If you’re using the trial version of FontLab 7 or you need more licenses, visit store.fontlab.com until Tuesday, 8 December 2020 and enjoy huge discounts:

• US$299: new license (35% off, later $459)
• US$199 if you have: • Glyphs • RoboFont • TypeTool 3 • Fontographer 5 • FontLab Studio 5 • or if you’re a student/teacher
• US$99 if you have FontLab VI

Changes in FontLab 7.2.0.7644

Warning

FontLab 7.2 uses an updated VFC/VFJ file format. If you save/export a VFC or VFJ in FontLab 7.2, you may not be able to open it in an older version of FontLab.

Features

When a positioning lookup is active in the Lookups panel, the top of the Rules section now shows the MarkFilteringSet and the IgnoreBaseGlyphs flags.

TrueType Hinting

When the TrueType Hinting mode of the Glyph window is active:

• New The TrueType Hinting panel now has two buttons. You can open the Code section either to the right or at the bottom of the panel. Use these buttons depending on where you dock the TrueType Hinting panel.

• New When you place the cursor in the Code panel, FontLab now highlights the corresponding hint (arrow, double arrow, interpolation arrows, anchor) in the glyph canvas. And vice versa, hovering over the hint in the Glyph window highlights the corresponding line in the Code panel.

• New When you change the scale for the pixel Waterfall Preview in the TTH ☰ menu and then close and reopen the Glyph window or just switch tools, FontLab correctly remembers and restores the selected Waterfall Preview scale.

• New In the visual hint Options panel, the Align destination options are now disabled when Round length is on.

• New When the hint Options panel is open and you switch to another glyph using Glyph > Next Glyph or Glyph > Previous Glyph, FontLab now hides the panel to avoid using it in the wrong glyph.

• New When you add a link or interpolation instruction, FontLab instantly accepts it and adds the line of code to the Visual TT Program panel.

• New The Show Off-curve Points button in the Property bar is now disabled when the current glyph has no TrueType curves.

Font window

In the Font window sidebar, the Layers & Masters section, when you have multiple masters and some of them don’t include all glyphs, a circled number appears next to the master name.

When you click the master name, the Font window filter shows the glyph cells that have that master.

New When you click the circled number, the Font window filter shows the glyph cells that don’t have that master. This way you can easily find glyphs that are missing a particular master.

Windows and panels

Preferences > General > Other now has a new option Close panels by CmdW. When this is on, the keyboard shortcut CmdW CtrlW behaves differently depending on where the user interface “focus” is (which UI element is active):

• When a panel has focus, the keyboard shortcut is associated with Window > Close Panel. When you press the shortcut or choose the menu item, FontLab closes the currently active panel.
• When a window has focus, the shortcut is associate with Window > Close Tab or Window > Close Window. When you press the shortcut or choose the menu item, FontLab closes the current tab, or the current window if it has no tabs.

Turn the preference off, and CmdW CtrlW will always close the tab/window.

UFO/VFB

• New When you export the font to UFO or VFB, FontLab no longer copies anchors from component sources to composite glyphs.

• New When you open a UFO and a GLIF file defines linked metrics using Glyphs-compatible lib keys like com.schriftgestaltung.Glyphs.glyph.leftMetricsKey, FontLab now converts them into FontLab-compatible metrics expressions, the same way it does when you open a .glyphs file.

• New When you export DesignSpace+UFO, FontLab now respects custom Family names set for instances in Font Info > Instances, and writes them correctly to the .designspace file.

Bug fixes

• Fix Font Info > Overview now correctly displays the Safe Bottom value as a negative number, with minus.

• Fix When you test OpenType features in the Glyph window and use the glyphtext /glyphname notation, FontLab now applies the features to all glyphs correctly.

• Fix If a glyph layer has elements that have a live shift applied, and it has hints, when you change the live shift or expand the transformation, FontLab now updates the hints correctly.

• Fix After you apply a filter in the Font window and click the + button at the bottom of the sidebar, FontLab now correctly stores the filter as a new bookmark.

• Fix After you use the Fonts panel to duplicate a font, FontLab no longer hides the font guides in the original font.

• Fix When you copy and paste multiple elements and hint(s) at the same time, FontLab no longer crashes.

• Fix In Classes panel, if the name of a class is very long, the width of the left column no longer changes unexpectedly.

• Fix When you edit the glyph name directly in glyph cell caption, the use of an invalid name shows an alert and keep the focus on the glyph. Previously, the focus jumped to the first glyph in Font Window table.

• Fix If your feature definitions in the Features panel don’t contain languagesystem definitions in the Prefix section, FontLab automatically generates them when you click Compile Features. FontLab now generates the languagesystem definitions more correctly.

• Fix In Font Info > Names, when you edit the Master name, FontLab no longer moves the text cursor to the end of the field.

• Fix The Lookups panel now correctly displays the list of base glyphs in mark and mkmk features.

• Fix In the TrueType Hinting mode, when you turn on pixel Waterfall Preview after adding a visual hint, FontLab no longer crashes.

Other changes in FontLab 7.2 are described in the previous release notes:

View 7.2.0.7622 Release Notes