Quite a few OpenType fonts nowadays contain various alternative glyphs for characters, for example, alternative forms of ‘a’ and ‘g’, contained in stylistic sets. These glyphs can be seen in the character set pane when glyph view is activated. However, the only way to find out how to access such a glyph in a text programme, say, Word, is to go through all the stylistic sets (20) until you find it.
I would like to suggest that MainType be equipped with a feature which displays which stylistic set(s) a selected glyph may be found (or if it is a standard or discretionary ligature, or an old-style or lining number etc.). This could be shown at the bottom of the glyph preview pane.
It would also be nice if MainType could print all the glyphs in a font, not just those with unicode code-points.
Not really. Just type an alphabet, copy and paste it a few times, then apply each stylistic set in turn. Print out the sheet from Word or publish it to PDF as a guide. Something like this, but a full set of a-z (and A-Z too if the font has stylistic alternates for those).
I don’t think doing that using MainType to find your glyphs would be very efficient. There would be a lot of switching back and forth, scrolling, and clicking.
