Scanahand 4.0 is out now and the features can be seen here:
http://www.high-logic.com/font-generato ... story.html.
The enhancements from previous version (3.1) seems to be minor, but I had the opportunity to see a glimpse of the new very promising spacing algorithm, which did not come without great effort of High-Logic personnel.
The newsletter of Scanahand 4.0 said that "This version includes a brand new algorithm for calculating
the optimal amount of space before and after each character within
the basic Latin character set." And I heard that this new version calculates only LSB/RSB, not kerning pairs or classes.
This is fine for some portion of user base, but we in northern Europe are in need of proper spacing/kerning calculation of extended character sets (ÅÄÖÆØ etc.) and my Russian friends appreciate also АБВГДЕЖЗИЙ etc (Правильно я говорю, мой друг?).
I understand that the development work was huge, but why to stop here?
When we finally get a Scanahand which produces fonts that are USABLE AS SUCH - without need of producing spacing and kerning in other programs and without need to send fonts to professional spacing firms (eg. Igino Marini iKern)?
My suggestion is to skip this 4.0, which should have named 3.2 because of it's support for spacing is so limited. Of course if basic Latin is enough for you, then 4.0 is for you.
We are waiting the next version.