Changelog for Fontra
2025-03-16
- Fixed several bugs in the designspace backend related to editing font sources. Issue 2040 PR 2091
2025-03-14
New features:
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:
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:
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
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
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
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