Font Forum

I have added a few more tips to my Tip of the Day thread, which use shortcuts extensively. There are already a few threads in this forum requesting more shortcuts to select tools, align nodes, etc. That's because shortcuts are great time-savers for the repetitive tasks that are so common in font editing. When your fonts have 3,000 glyphs, every second counts.

OpenType Designer
The controls change depending on which feature is selected, so there may be no way around these issues, but I record them anyway in case there is a fairly simple solution to at least some of them.

1. On opening the OpenType Designer dialogue there is no way to access anything without using the mouse. The Tab key should focus the script in the left panel
2. There is no way to access the Second Kerning pair (S is unused)
3. The first kerning pair is accessible by using the Tab key ten times, but it has no access key (F is unused)
4. Disable unused settings has no access key (D is unused)
5. The Code Editor is accessible with Ctrl + F8, but it has no access key.
6. The Tab Order of the dialogue is odd: Import, Export, Clear, Apply, OK, Cancel, Help, then Code Editor, Kern Wizard are last, when they should forllow Clear.
7. There are no access keys for the Class Manager or Code Editor buttons on the top toolbar. The widely used "properties" shortcuts, Alt Enter (try that in Windows Explorer) should open the Code Editor to edit or examine the selected feature or lookup's properties.
8. The Class Manager could use Alt M as an access key.
9. Perhaps the Class Manager could be accessible directly from the glyph overview or a glyph edit window without opening the OpenType Designer dialogue?
10. In the Class Manager, single-key shortcuts should select classes in the alphabetical list, whether it's sorted or not, e.g. in my list of names, C should first focus C_ Caps, then, C_ smcp, C_pcap, C_sups, then back to C_Caps. Case-sensitive is best, then c first finds c_lc, then c_lc_ top, etc.
11. To validate the code the F7 could be used.
12. Shortcut Insert already selects Class Members to add to an existing class if the list of an existing class if focused on the right, or it selects Class Members to add to a new class if the list of class on the left is focused. This is a bit confusing at first, but it is logical and perfectly workable.
13. F2 works to rename a class, and Delete works to delete it (with a warning dialogue). The delete button needs to show the shortcut in the tooltip.
14. Ctrl + Up/Down could be used to move classes up and down the list
15. OK, Cancel, and Help all have access keys in the Class Manager; Alt F4 and Escape close the dialogue without saving changes. All is as expected.
16. Shortcuts can serve more than one purpose in different contexts. Ctrl F8 already does: it opens the OpenType Designer, but it also opens the Code Editor

Dual Purpose Shortcuts.
Shortcuts can serve more than one purpose in different contexts. Ctrl F8 already does: it opens the OpenType Designer, but it also opens the Code Editor from the OpenType Designer.

• Properties shortcut Alt Enter could be used to Open the Font Properties dialogue from the glyph overview, and the Composite Glyph Properties dialogue in a glyph edit window. Maybe there's something it could do in a simple glyph too, but I cannot think of anything.
• The Insert shortcut in an empty glyph edit window or a composite glyph should open the Insert Glyph Member dialogue. In the glyph overview, Insert could insert a glyph before the selected glyph(s) or open the Insert Glyphs dialogue if no glyphs are selected.

Good suggestions. We will include these in a future release:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

11 (validate code) already has F9