Glyphs Mini

Actually addressed to not exactly the right audience they first shortly explained the innovations of Glyphs Mini. They had transported several features of the main app into its more basic version. There had been done quite some changes to the interface: descried colours highlighting any glyphs that might cause problems for the font export or more colours helping to keep an overview over the treating of components.
A pixel app (for the real 1980ies look of your fonts) that already had been a plugin for the main app, now works as a new tool in Glyphs Mini.

 

Glyphs 2.4.3

Statistics first: Rainer happily announced the latest update on Glyphs, now 2.4.2. After just having celebrated the 1000th Version, he updated that today it even is the 1007th (after this mornings 1006th)one. Having started in 2011 on version 299, one can just imagine, how up to date the two are in implementing their clients’s wishes. I experienced myself the high frequency of new updates of the cutting edge version of Glyphs within the last week.
But this is how they work: Always in contact with and reaction to the community.

Luckily, this was not just one more presentation of the possibilities of Variable Fonts. Rainer could even thank Adam Twardoch for his great presentation of how to work on this new technology in Glyphs, within his own talk about Variable Fonts innovations in FontLab!

Georg could add, that he already had solved one other issue that had been pointed out in one of the lectures yesterday: from now on fully hinted Variable Fonts can be exported.

 

Some innovations

There are now better possibilities for manual TrueType hinting.
A special for “middle aged, male geeks”: You now can script with Apple script.
For the designers: Who ever this might need can now mirror guides.
But what I personally find very useful is a new feature to crop scans within the glyphs cell. This saves a lot of time and nerves.

Coding

Yanone had helped with Python, but in general, Glyphs extensible open scripting architecture allows even Perl (who ever might need this).

 

There are great tutorial on teaching yourself Python coding, using samples from Github, which can be applied easily with the already existing Python Manager. A big thank you goes to Mark Frömberg for his plugins.
Four new Apps

 

 

 

MergeGlyphs

This app allows the user to merge two different fonts. It is a very helpful tool, when you are separately working on two versions of the same font, and you want to combine the best of each.
You can merge the font level and the master level. The tool displays kerning and even outline differences.
The whole process of merging is very time intense, but it is absolutely worth it.
Inka Strotmann respectful: “The mega control!”
A first public Beta version is available from today on.

 

CommitGlyphs

It is actually the same same like MergeGlyphs, but for Gitclient.
A first public Alpha version is available from today on. > Be careful!

 

FontTableViewer

Needed for bug fixing, this app is is reading out tables.
A nice feature of the icon for the app: Showing an Eye, surrounded by parts of the cheek, it is not defining any visible ethnic group (but it is definitely not white and western) or gender. The artwork for the icon was designed by Yanone.
A first public Beta version is available from today on.

 

 

 

TextPreview

Georg and Rainer never had been happy with the situation of installing a font in OSX. A lot of people struggled with the font cache, and it always was very enjoying and complicated to test the text appearance of fonts, while one was working on them. The only way to avoid this trouble was to export the fonts directly into the Adobe Fonts folder.
The new TextPreview matches exactly this Adobe Font folder to install the font but it shows the test preview already within the Glyphs App.
It is like text editing within the app, and one can try out all the instances and features already. Another nice feature: moving the mouse (curser) out of the window, the menu bar on top of the preview window disappears, and it looks like a nice text page without any distracting tool bars around.
One more thank you goes to Thomas Hellwig for his support on this app.
A first public Beta version is available from today on.

The Q&A again was a quite entertaining highlight of this presentation, because like all the years before, Georg and Rainer’s answers to each question differs between: “I will see what I can do.”, “It’s on the list.”, and “We can discuss this together”. And everybody can be sure: They do.

You can find the new apps on the Glyphs website, where there is now a new category: tools. → https://glyphsapp.com/tools