Changelog for Fontra

2025-03-26

• Fixed bug with undo and source (background) layers: undo wouldn't switch to the correct source layer, with a visual glitch because the correct layer would be in edit mode. Issue 2119 PR 2120
• Fixed various problems with the font sources panel (in the font info view), when there were no sources at all. Issue 2117 PR 2118

2025-03-25

• New features in the glyph sources list:
  • The glyph sources are now sorted according to the axes (they used to be in creation order)
  • The default source's name is now rendered in bold, so it's easier to find
  • For each font source location ("global location") for which the glyph does not have a source, there is now a "virtual source" in the list, rendered in gray. To create an actual source at that location, either double-click the virtual source, or, while the virtual source is selected, start modifying the glyph.
  • Issue 1572, Issue 1639, Issue 1640, Issue 2114
  • PR 2102, PR 2098
• Fixed subtle key handling bug with popup menus inside a dialog Issue 2113 PR 2115

2025-03-22

• [designspace/ufo] Fixed background layers for sparse masters. Issue 2111 PR 2112

2025-03-20

• New feature: we added a Font Info panel for editing OpenType features. Issue 2080 PR 2104

2025-03-19

• New feature: we added UI for lower level OpenType settings, as part of the Font Info panel and the Font Sources panel. Issue 2023 PR 2039
• Vastly improved keyboard navigation of the menu bar and (contextual) menus. Issue 2061 PR 2062
• Fixed bug where components appeared incompatible. Issue 2092 PR 2093
• [fontra-rcjk] Fixed bug where the list of projects was duplicated. Issue 2094 PR 2095

2025-03-16

• Fixed several bugs in the designspace backend related to editing font sources. Issue 2040 PR 2091

2025-03-14

New features:

• Background layers are here! Issue 50, many PR's, see issue.
• Beginnings of writing .glyphs and .glyphspackage files. First step: glyph data. fontra-glyphs issue 75 fontra-glyphs PR 76 Issue for future work

Bugfixes:

• Units Per Em is now exported properly (This affected "Export as", fontra-workflow and fontra-copy). Issue 2044 PR 2046
• Fixed bug where the context menu wouldn't go away Issue 2068 PR 2069
• Fixed false positive with the interpolation compatibility checker. Issue 2081 PR 2083

Enhancements:

• Don't write empty kern data to .fontra project. Issue 2045 PR 2047
• Show a warning when deleting a font source. Issue 2048 PR 2055
• Allow menus to be opened with click-drag, not just click. Issue 2049 PR 2060

2025-03-05

There have been some major changes in the front end, in order to have a clearer separation between the Python server code and the front end. This makes the front-end usable independently from the server.

• All front end code and assets moved to a new folder, src-js
• A bundler (webpack) is now used to package assets and code
  • To run the bundler once: npm run bundle
  • To run the bundler in "watch" mode (updates bundle on changes): npm run bundle-watch
  • Or start the server with the new --dev option, which runs npm run bundle-watch in the background. For example:
    • fontra --dev filesystem path/to/fonts/
  • pip install path/to/fontra/ will run the bundler implicitly
• Similar changes were made in the fontra-rcjk repository
• Fontra Pak was adjusted to these changes as well
• Issue 1952 PR 2053 fontra-rcjk PR 224

2025-02-28

Many smaller bugs were fixed:

• Allow menus from the menubar to be opened with click-drag Issue 2049 PR 2060
• Paste only plain text in editable list cells Issue 2043 PR 2057
• Fix tooltips layout issues Issue 2050 PR 2056
• Show warning befor deleting a font source, as this can have deeper consequences than one might think Issue 2048 PR 2055
• Improve point deletion if a point is overlapping another, or is a tangent Issue 2033 PR 2035 PR 2038
• Fix bug where the Italic Angle font source parameter was written as the wrong type Issue 2036 PR 2037

2025-02-16

• Do not display the "selection bounds" handles if the selection is only a single point Issue 2022 PR 2024
• Fix bug in reference font panel Issue 2011 PR 2012
• Redesigned the Font Source panel Issue 1997 PR 2007
• Added initial support for global guidelines. For now they need to be set in the Font Sources panel. Adding or editing global guidelines in the glyph editor will be implemented later. Issue 909 Issue 1963 PR 2021

2025-01-30

• Added support for reading .woff and .woff2 PR 1999

2025-01-27

• Misc improvements to the Font Overview
• Added preset glyph sets from Google Fonts, Black Foundry, Adobe and Christoph Koeberlin
• Fixed a bug with point deletion Issue 1980, PR 1981

2025-01-21

The Font Overview is ready to be used everywhere, including in Fontra Pak. Documentation will follow soon.

It has support for "template glyphsets", that can be chosen from collections of presets, or made from any publically hosted text, .tsv or .csv data. This includes files on GitHub and publically readable Google Docs or Sheets.

There will be further improvements and additions. Ongoing work: Issue 1886

2025-01-17

• A change in the URL format: the project identifier is now in the URL query, instead of part of the URL path Issue 1960, PR 1959
• Editor tools: right-clicking or control-clicking on a tool with sub-tools will now show the subtools instead of the browser's context menu Issue 1953, PR 1956

2025-01-14

• Fixed a regression with the Font menu Issue 1941, PR 1942
• Fixed a regression with messages from server PR 1939

2025-01-06

• Fixed bug related to deleting points Issue 1910, PR 1916
• Added robots.txt to HTTP root folder PR 1905
• Small improvements to Related Glyphs & Characters panel (selecting multiple glyphs, keyboard navigation) PR 1906
• Accordion view: alt-click on a header folds/unfolds all items PR 1901
• Implement finding glyph names for code points and code points for glyph names in JS, via a CSV version of GlyphData.xml. This is a performance improvement, and needed for the upcoming Font Overview PR 1900
• Fixed a regression witb CJK Design Frame settings PR 1883
• Fixed a regression with the Knife Tool PR 1870

2024-12-19

• Making the interface between server and client more explicit PR 1863
• Fixed editing bug with multiple edit views PR 1870
• Prevent fontra-copy and Fontra Pak's "Export as..." to write on top of the source data (as this destroyed the data)
  • fontra-copy: PR 1860
  • Fontra Pak: PR 148
• Fontra Pak: add button with link to documentation PR 143

2024-12-04

• Fixes "clean view" (space bar) on Safari PR 1835

2024-11-29

• Japanese UI translation (thanks Masaki Ando!)

2024-11-28

• Keep the focus on the canvas when clicking icon buttons and (some) list cell buttons PR 1829

2024-11-27

• Add 'Add background image' menu to context menu PR 1827
• Fixed bug with colorizing the background image on Safari PR 1825
• Reorganize context menu: put "Edit" items under a sub menu PR 1824
• Fix the Knife tool PR 1823

2024-11-20

• Add support for background image colorization PR 1815

2024-11-18

New feature: background images.

A background image can be added to a glyph in three ways:

• Paste image data
• Drop an image file onto the canvas
• Choose an image file from the user's hard drive, with the "Glyph" -> "Add background image..." menu.

The image file or data can be in PNG or JPEG format.

The glyph needs to be in edit mode, and at a selected source (not at an interpolation).

Fontra's background image feature is mostly compatible with UFO background images, although it doesn't implement UFO's colorization feature yet. Fontra does allow the opacity of the image to be set.

Background images are locked by default, and can be unlocked with the "Unlock background images" context menu item.

Selected background images can be moved around by dragging, and they participate in the Selection Transformation panel's operations.

The Selection Info panel shows the settings for a selected background image: the Opacity can be edited there and the Transformation settings can be edited numerically there.

Caveat: support for background images is limited to the .designspace/.ufo and .fontra backends. It is currently not supported in the rcjk backend.

Issue 1660, Issue 1777 (There were too many PRs to mention individually here.)

2024-11-13

• Improved UI translations PR 1764
• Added "Select previous/next glyph" menu items PR 1706
• Partial support for background images (more to come) PR 1775
• Add support for many UFO font info fields, so they won't get lost during round-tripping PR 1770
• Fixed cosmetic issue with scrollbars on Windows PR 1767
• Fixed bug with Copy/Paste menu items PR 1756

2024-10-24

• Various improvements to the font sources panel PR 1739
• Add changelog file PR 1749

2024-10-23

• New cross-axis mapping page for avar2 mappings PR 1729
• Allow custom shortcuts for selecting previous/next reference font PR 1742

2024-10-16

• New pen tool icon PR 1726

2024-10-14

• New languages: French, Dutch, German

2024-10-13

• Fontra Pak: build macOS application as "Universal2" binary, so it runs natively on all processor types Fontra Pak PR 108

2024-10-12

• Delete gear panel (move to difference locations, for example: View -> Glyph editor apperance) PR 1701

2024-10-10

• Fontra Pak: added "Export as..." functionality Fontra Pak PR 133

2024-09-27

• Shape tool (rectangle, ellipse)
• Knife tool

New editor features

• Interactive transformation (scale, rotate)
• Glyph level guidelines
• Close/Join contours
• Anchors
• Glyph locking

New panels

• Development status definitions panel (colors)
• Sources panel (Global sources editor)
• Shortcuts panel

New sidebars

• Selection Transformation
  • transform objects (move, scale, rotate, skew)
  • Align and distribute objects
  • Path operations like remove overlaps
• Glyph Notes
• Related Glyphs & Characters

New visualizations

• Line metrics
• Development status color
• Transform selection
• Guidelines
• Component nodes and handles
• Anchor names
• Contour indices
• Component names and indices
• Coordinates
• Point indices
• Glyph lock icon for non-editing glyphs

Misc

• UI Translation (Chinese and English)

2024-03-01

• Fontra Pak: Create new font
• Menu bar
• Axis editor
  • Mapping (graph + list)
  • Axis value labels
  • Discrete axis
  • Axis reordering
• side bearings
• shift click