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Release notes for FontLab 8.4.1.8926

20 August 2024

With FontLab 8.4, your Bézier-wrangling experience got smoother than a perfectly curved “S” — over 100 improvements over 8.3, 500 improvements over 8.0, and a whopping 900 improvements over FontLab 7!

Version 8.4.1 brings a few more feature improvements — and numerous fixes for issues that you reported:

Edit & refine

Power Nudge and Genius nodes

Power Nudge helps you make larger adjustments to your contours quickly with the Contour tool. Click the Power Nudge toggle in the Contour toolbox or tap ShiftC, select some nodes, drag them, and FontLab magically figures out which other nodes should follow the change proportionally (they become “auto-servant” nodes during the operation). Or hold C to activate Power Nudge temporarily.

Power Nudge is a great helper if you’re condensing a glyph or changing its overall proportions — but it never played well with Genius nodes. If a smooth node is Genius, it automatically finds its position between its two handles to remain G2-smooth. If a Genius node is not selected, it has been trying to move one way, but Power Nudge has been trying to pull it another way. The dissonance could escalate quickly, and could lead to unpredictable changes to your contour.

New In FontLab 8.4.1, non-selected Genius nodes behave more gently if Power Nudge is turned on. They only follow the change if their handles are horizontal or vertical, otherwise they stay in place.

Build & assemble

Inheriting anchors

If a glyph has mark anchors (in which the name is prefixed with _), and you use that glyph as a component source in a composite glyph (including auto layers), the composite glyph:

  • New will not inherit that anchor if its OT Definition in the Glyph panel is set to Simple or Ligature, or if the auto layer recipe ends with #? noanchors.
  • will otherwise inherit the anchor.

Glyphs & fonts

Selecting classes that contain glyphs

New To select classes or tags in the Classes panel that contain the glyphs that are selected in the Font window, click the Select classes/tags button under the classes list.

Editing operations in Font window

New If the Font window is active, and you activate the Layers & Masters panel, you can now perform Edit menu operations like Paste Special. Previously, you had to activate the Font window again.

Bug fixes

  • Fix If you use the Thickness tool on a Power Brush to change the rotation (Alt-drag) or local thickness (drag), you can now correctly undo these edits. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7839
  • Fix The Preview panel no longer incorrectly renders the sidebearings of some glyphs in Right-to-Left Glyph window mode after FontLab exports the font. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7854
  • Fix Fixes a crash on a specific font opening its Font Info or when exporting it to OpenType.
  • Fix The direction of open contours no longer changes if you close a contour using Contour > Join or by moving nodes on top of each other. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7847 https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7850
  • Fix If you undo glyph metrics editing and then revert the font, elements no longer disappear from the edited glyph. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7827
  • Fix Make SVG Editable now creates elements more faithfully. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7836
  • Fix If you turn on Round coordinates in Font Info and service layers contain fractional coordinates, and you close Font Info, FontLab now rounds the coordinates on service layers, but doesn’t show the Coordinates Rounding warning. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7828
  • Fix The Help > User Manual menu command now opens the correct link. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7832
  • Fix If use the Text Font window filter and you you create glyphs from a Font window selection, FontLab no longer creates duplicate glyphs with the same name. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7826
  • Fix If you export an OpenType COLR color font, the exported glyphs no longer include the incorrect color layers.
  • Fix The Next Glyph (Cmd[) and Previous Glyph (Cmd[) shortcuts now correctly browse through glyphs in the Text mode. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7841
  • Fix In the Glyph panel, glyphs that do not belong to any class no longer get the label multiple in the kerning class fields. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7842
  • Fix If you paste a color drawing from Adobe Illustrator, FontLab no longer incorrectly changes the color of some elements. https://github.com/Fontlab/fl/issues/7844
  • Fix If the current glyph is located near the Glyph window’s right edge (especially if View > Center Glyph or Pair is turned off), the Glyph window no longer cuts off side widgets. Instead, FontLab repositions the widgets so that all widgets are visible within the window.
  • Fix Additional fixes in handling of PostScript hint export.
  • Fix If no sub-tools are active in the Eraser tool and you Ctrl-click a node, the context menu no longer appears. Instead, the Simplify path functionality gets activated, like in FontLab 8.3 and older.
  • Fix If Preferences > Variations > Smart rounding is turned on and you export OpenType PS instances, FontLab correctly takes ghost hints into account when exporting the instances.
  • Fix If you export instances as OpenType PS, variable components no longer lose their hints.