Sorting Glyph Cells

A filter determines which glyphs match a view. The Sort Cells control determines the order in which the view presents cells where that order is not already fixed by the filter.

This is a display operation. Choosing a different sort condition can move cells around the Font window without changing the glyph-index sequence stored in the font. A useful inspection order does not have to become the font's permanent order.

Choosing a display order

Use the Property Bar's Sort control to choose an available ordering condition. Inspect both the active filter and Hide unfiltered glyphs, because a filter can reserve part of the sequence for its own defined order.

The sort selector offers identity, metric, flag, script, and age-based orders. Index is selected as the sort condition here; this is not the separate Index filter type.

For example, a width-based arrangement can bring similarly spaced glyphs together for inspection. It does not change their widths. A name-based arrangement makes the names easier to scan without renaming the glyphs.

Three cases explain the interaction with filtering.

Index view

With the Index filter active, the Sort control is disabled. The cells follow the font's internal glyph order, so display order and glyph-index order coincide.

This is useful when you need to inspect that sequence itself. The disabled control is not a missing feature: choosing another display ordering would defeat the purpose of the view.

An index is a position in the current font, not a permanent identity for a particular drawing. Changing the actual glyph collection or its physical order can change indices, even though a display-only sort does not.

Filters with a defined sequence

An Encoding filter supplies its own ordered glyph list. Unicode-range and codepage filters likewise provide a sequence defined by their character collection.

In these views, the matching portion retains the filter's prescribed order. The Sort control can still arrange non-matching glyphs that follow it when those glyphs are visible. It does not replace the order of the defined target collection.

If Hide unfiltered glyphs is on, that sortable remainder is hidden. Changing the sort choice can then appear to do nothing because the visible matching block is still governed by the filter.

This behavior keeps a prospective target recognizable. Its missing positions remain meaningful in relation to the target's sequence rather than moving each time you choose another way to inspect the font's other glyphs.

Property and search filters

Category, Script, and ordinary property-search results can be arranged by the chosen sort condition. Where both matches and non-matches are visible, FontLab sorts those groups separately: matches remain together before the non-matching remainder.

Sorting by name therefore need not produce one uninterrupted alphabetical list across the entire display. The boundary between matching and non-matching groups still has meaning. Turn off the filter if the intention is to inspect one unfiltered collection in a single display order.

Not every search result is free to reorder. A search that selects an Encoding or another prescribed collection inherits that collection’s ordering rules. An explicit text/name enumeration also retains its prescribed sequence. Judge the active result type rather than assuming that everything entered through Search behaves identically.

Making an order permanent

Font > Sort Glyphs > Current Order is a separate operation that writes the current arrangement into the font's glyph order. It crosses the boundary from inspecting the collection to changing it.

Do not use that command merely to obtain a different view. The Property Bar's display sort is sufficient for inspection. When a permanent sequence is required, check the current filter, missing positions, and the intended font before consolidating the order. The structural operation is covered in Drag-and-Drop Operations.