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What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 2:05 am
by AdamLink
Some things I would love to see...although some of them may not be feasible. And it is possible that some of the following may be possible right now in FontCreator...but I haven't figured out how to do them.

1. A way to import a whole bitmapped font into FontCreator. I have a few programs that use a bitmapped font which I'd like to improve on, but keep as a bitmapped font because the software requires it.

2. The ability to look at the parameters of one font (size of glyph, spacing around glyph, thickness of lines), copy those parameters and use them when I create another font.

3. On a windows computer, I can access individual characters of a font using the ALT key and the keypad. One glyph might be ALT + 0190, for example. I would like to see those ALT numbers show up as another option under Captions, in addition to Glyph Name, Glyph Index, etc.

4. Certain things are not reversible, but I wish they were. For example, using the Glyph Transformer. Or if they can't be undone, there should be a way to view the way the character would look if the Glyph Transformer settings were enacted, and that way if the result was not as intended, we could cancel it without making the change.

5. Better help files or even some good tutorials.

Zane

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 5:38 am
by Bhikkhu Pesala
  1. Requested a few times before. Might be useful for CJK fonts.
  2. Difficult to implement. Just copy some key glyphs like H, d, x and set up guidelines in the new font.
  3. From the View menu, set the Display format to Decimal (shortcut Ctrl J). Add a zero before the decimal number for the Alt code.
  4. It would take too much memory on large fonts. A workaround is: copy the glyph or glyphs, run the transformation, paste the glyph or glyphs back in, undo the paste operation. Now you can redo/undo to compare before/after results.
  5. You can find some Video Tutorials on my FontCreator Review page, and some written Tutorials in the Tutorial forum. The most recent videos now have voice-over added by Jonne Haven. This video on Optical Margin Alignment in InDesign, is an example (IMO) of a clear and professional video. Anyone is welcome to convert mine to other formats, or make their own versions with narration to post on YouTube, etc. This user-led Community-based approach can work quite well.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 10:40 am
by AdamLink
Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:
  1. From the View menu, set the Display format to Decimal (shortcut Ctrl J). Add a zero before the decimal number for the Alt code.
OK, I had the display format set to decimal. But I'm still not clear where I should looking to put the zero in front of the decimal number. Codepoints?

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 11:15 am
by Alfred
AdamLink wrote:
Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:
  1. From the View menu, set the Display format to Decimal (shortcut Ctrl J). Add a zero before the decimal number for the Alt code.
OK, I had the display format set to decimal. But I'm still not clear where I should looking to put the zero in front of the decimal number. Codepoints?
Yes, but I think it only works for code points up to 255. The code point for å is 229, and Alt+0229 gives the correct result (unlike Alt+229, which yields Õ); however, if I try the same trick for š (code point 353) I get a lowercase 'a' here, whether or not I prefix a zero.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 11:18 am
by Bhikkhu Pesala
AdamLink wrote:I'm still not clear where I should looking to put the zero in front of the decimal number. Codepoints?
For ASCII characters up to 126 you don't actually need the zero — Alt 65 or Alt 065 will both type A. For ANSI characters above 126, e.g. 224 à you need to type the zero or you will get the wrong character. Hold Alt and type 0224 to type à Type 0255 to type ÿ.

Higher numbers used to work in Windows XP, but they don't seem to work in Windows 7.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 11:23 am
by Alfred
Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:Higher numbers used to work in Windows XP, but they don't seem to work in Windows 7.
Thanks for that. I thought I wasn't imagining that I used to be able to use Alt+0353 for š! I thought it might have depended on the application (e.g. using a different web browser) but it's the same in FontCreator's Preview toolbar. :(

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 8:40 am
by AdamLink
OK, I set the Display format to decimal.
There are two different options to show numbers above each glyph, setting the Captions to either Glyph Index or Code Points.
I tried using the numbers on each of those options, putting a 0 in front of the numbers and then typing Alt + the number. In both Glyph Index, and Code Points, I get entirely different glyphs when I type this in Word than show in FontCreator with those numbers.

Was there something else I was supposed to look at to see the numbers for all the glyphs?

Zane

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 11:48 am
by Bhikkhu Pesala
The glyph index is merely the position of the glyph in the font, and will give meaningless results.

You need to use the codepoints, but as noted above it will only work up to 0255 = ÿ.

On earlier versions of Windows we could type 0256 to get Ā, 0257 to get ā etc.

Bottom line: There's no point in having an option in FontCreator to show the ALT shortcuts as they are the same as the decimal codepoints.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 11:59 am
by Erwin Denissen
The Alt-X trick might still work in WordPad and Word:
Type the Character Code Point and press Alt-X.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 12:52 pm
by Alfred
Erwin Denissen wrote:The Alt-X trick might still work in WordPad and Word:
Type the Character Code Point and press Alt-X.
That doesn't seem to work in WordPad on Windows 7, even for code points below 256. Typing Alt+0153 gives me the expected , but typing 0153 and pressing Alt+X gives me œ. :(

Edit: The plot thickens. If I type Alt+0169 in WordPad, I get ©; if I press Alt+X I get A9 (i.e. 169 in hexadecimal notation). However, if I type 99 (i.e. 153 in hexadecimal) I get nothing visible when I press Alt+X; if I type Alt+0153 and then press Alt+X, I get 2122. :?

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 3:47 pm
by Bhikkhu Pesala
To avoid these problems, Download the free BabelMap. It is many times better than Windows Character Map.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 3:54 pm
by Erwin Denissen
I believe alt-x expects the code point in hex e.g.

161alt-x for decimal code point 353.

For codes outside the first plane make sure you first select the whole hexadecimal code point before you press alt-x.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:23 pm
by Alfred
Erwin Denissen wrote:I believe alt-x expects the code point in hex e.g.

161alt-x for decimal code point 353.
Oops — yes, that would help! :roll:

That still leaves the problem which I reported earlier: if I type 99 (i.e. 153 in hexadecimal) I expect to get when I press Alt+X but I actually get nothing visible; if I type Alt+0153 and then press Alt+X, I get 2122.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:56 pm
by Erwin Denissen
99 is a control character:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf

You are still thinking in the old code page area.

The trademark sign has Unicode code point 0x2122.

Re: What I would like to see in FontCreator...

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 9:32 pm
by Alfred
Erwin Denissen wrote:99 is a control character:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf

You are still thinking in the old code page area.

The trademark sign has Unicode code point 0x2122.
I see — or at least I think I do! Thanks for the education, Erwin.