View Sets and the View Panel
An outline-editing view can accumulate many useful details: points, guides, measurements, masks, and audit markers. View sets let you retain different combinations and switch between them without repeatedly rebuilding the display.
The View Panel as Display Controller
Open Window > Panels > View with a Glyph window active. The panel gathers controls also available through the View menu and Toolbar. In compact horizontal toolbar mode, use the View options popup for the display toggles, including font dimensions and zones. These visibility choices remain separate from the tool-group popups.
The View panel separates layer visibility from drawing aids such as dimensions, guides, and the grid.
Its main table separates three questions:
- Visibility: is this detail shown?
- Snapping: can it attract a point or pointer during an edit?
- Locking: can it be selected or moved through the relevant canvas interaction?
Not every row supports all three. A checked snap control is not a promise that an invisible object will always attract a point, and a visible object is not necessarily editable. Inspect the row and the active context when an aid seems absent or unresponsive.
Other panel controls expose the aids taught in Rulers, Guides, and Power Guides, The Design Grid, Snapping and Suggestions, Live Measurement, Font Audit, and Design References and Comparing. Control bars, widgets, and rendering contexts are introduced in Glyph Window Anatomy. Suggestion controls provide the computed references used during drawing. Widgets add compact controls on the canvas. Use the panel to choose the combination needed for the current operation instead of enabling every overlay at once.
Detailed, Inactive, and Preview rendering determine the broad appearance of the glyphs. The view-detail settings work within that context. Quick Preview can temporarily hide editing information even when a detail is enabled in the working view.
Basic and Alternative View Sets
FontLab provides a basic and an alternative set of view details. The initial basic set is more detailed and the alternative more restrained, but both can be customized. The names do not restrict what either set can contain.
Press Cmd+/ on macOS or Ctrl+/ on Windows to switch, or use the View panel's A/B control. The Alternative View state indicates which side of the pair is active. Switching again returns to the other configuration.
A set retains structural-detail visibility and related display choices, including rulers, control bars, and the visibility of on-canvas widgets. Changing the set does not change the glyph's outline coordinates. It changes the information and controls available around the drawing.
Build a useful pair
- With the Contour tool active, select the basic view.
- Show nodes, handles, the relevant dimensions and guides, and any measurements needed for editing.
- Switch to the alternative view.
- Hide distracting details, retaining only the references you need to assess the shape.
- Switch back and forth to confirm that each set recalls the intended display.
The alternative view can remain editable. It is not necessarily the same as held-Space Quick Preview, which temporarily changes rendering and returns when the key is released. Keep a few useful controls in the alternative set if you want to make small corrections while assessing the fill.
Showing or hiding a widget changes its availability in that view. It does not remove the font data controlled by the widget. If a familiar widget disappears after a view switch, check View > Widgets before trying to recreate its contents.
Per-Mode Sets and Defaults
The ordinary editing, Metrics, Kerning, and Text contexts each have their own basic and alternative detail configurations. A suitable outline-editing display therefore need not be the display used for spacing or typing. The spacing and kerning configurations are covered in The Metrics Workspace and Kerning Visually.
Configure the pair while the relevant tool mode is active. For example, select Metrics before choosing which spacing controls and measurements its views should show. Returning to Contour restores the editing context's configured details. Check the A/B state as well: the choice between basic and alternative is a window view state, so do not assume each tool remembers a separate last-selected A/B button position.
There is also a distinction between the current window's state and the defaults for new windows. Changing a detail updates the active window and the stored default for that detail in its mode/set. It does not require other already-open windows to adopt the same display immediately.
A newly opened Glyph window can start from the stored defaults. A window created from an existing Glyph-window context can inherit that view's current configuration. This explains why two windows showing the same font can begin with different details or why a newly opened window reflects a recently changed preference.
When a display seems inconsistent, check the active tool, the A/B state, and the individual visibility control. Then check whether you are comparing an existing window with a newly created one. The font's drawing has not changed merely because the surrounding detail configuration differs.