The Font Icon displayed in the Groups tab indicates the font file is a shortcut file by displaying the arrow in the lower left corner of the icon.
The Font Icon displayed in the Active tab does not have this indication for fonts that were loaded or installed from shortcuts.
Why not?
This would be a nice feature to have (i.e, being able to differentiate if the installed font file is a shortcut file or the actual font file itself). I would be less hesitant in deleting an active font if I knew it were a shortcut file rather than if it were the actual font file.
The Windows Font Folder displays the font icon with the shortcut indication for installed fonts.
Because your assumption is not true. An installed font is always installed through a real font file. It can’t be installed as shortcut file.
The Windows Font Folder displays the font icon with the shortcut indication for installed fonts.
Don’t get fooled by that, right-click such fake shortcut, and then select Properties, and you’ll see. The shortcut indication is abused, as there are no shortcuts in Windows fonts folder (if shortcuts do exist, they are ignored!). Such an indication does tell you the font is not located in Windows fonts folder.
If the Font Icon in the Groups Tab can show the shortcut indication for an installed font, why cannot the Font Icon in the Active Tab also show the shortcut indication?
As you stated, that shortcut indication does tell the user the font does not reside in the system font folder, which is useful to know.
Because the active fonts aren’t shortcuts; they are actual font files. You cannot install a shortcut to a font file as a font. If you want to know where the font file is located, the folder column in Main Type will tell you that. But what would it mean to say that a shortcut is an active font AFAIK, what is listed in the active fonts tab is the info from the Windows registry.
The Groups tab is different: unlike the active fonts tab, which is Windows info, the Groups tab is Main Type-internal. The groups are actually directories (folders) on your hard disk, and many of us prefer not to actually have our fonts in these directories, so Erwin put in the possibility of having shortcuts in the groups folders. When you install from the groups, what is installed is the actual font file, not the shortcut.
In short, what you are asking for doesn’t really make sense.
