Reverting rectangle contour behavour in FC14 to FC11-style? (and a couple other FC14 questions)

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NAL
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Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 11:31 am
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Reverting rectangle contour behavour in FC14 to FC11-style? (and a couple other FC14 questions)

Post by NAL »

Heya,

I have recently upgraded to FontCreator 14. Broadly it's been a nice upgrade from 11, but there are a few things I'd like to ask about.

Firstly, the "Add Rectangle" tool's behaviour has changed in a way I find less useful than in 11. In FC11, this tool would always draw a rectangle with its contours in the same direction. In FC14, it appears to draw the rectangle with its contours in the opposite direction if it overlaps, or even just kisses, another shape. See the below - these shapes are both drawn with the rectangle tool, next to each other, and are opposite directions, so "Get union of contours" would not join them.
FC14 rectangles.png
FC14 rectangles.png (1.38 KiB) Viewed 1768 times
I would appreciate the ability, even just as a boolean in Options, to return "Add Rectangle" and "Add Circle" to drawing in one direction only. (Or if this is already possible, how do I toggle this?)

Secondly: is there a way of enabling grid lock on the boundary lines? I like to have RSB set to an exact multiple of 100, but it's less intuitive to have to adjust its number in Glyph Properties than it is just to visually snap it to a line in the font window.

Lastly: is there a way of setting certain things in the program to float by default rather than docking by default? I'd love it if I could have all my open fonts, glyph properties, preview bar etc. docked, but then any time I open a particular glyph to edit it, that opens in its own floating window rather than docking with the fonts I have open. (So it looks like below)
FC14 undocked font editor.png
FC14 undocked font editor.png (125.85 KiB) Viewed 1768 times
Thank you for the great work you continue to do with FontCreator, and I love a lot of the new stuff FC14's brought besides the odd growing pain 😄
Allison James
Chequered Ink fonts
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Reverting rectangle contour behavour in FC14 to FC11-style? (and a couple other FC14 questions)

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

1) Many glyphs, like 0, o, P, etc., have one clockwise contour with an anticlockwise contour inside of it. Contours drawn on top of another contour are automatically reversed. The first contour drawn is automatically clockwise. If you want the second contour to be clockwise, do not overlap another contour. Move it after drawing it if you want to combine contours using "Get Union of Contours."
2) Enable the grid, and snap to grid.
3) You can set panels to floating, docked, or docked and autohide (pinned). Watch My YouTube Video to learn how to arrange panels. It is similar to the Panels in MainType. It takes a bit of relearning, but it saves a lot of space to dock panels, and pin them. Even on high resolution screens, a lot of space is taken up by toolbars and panels if they are left floating.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
NAL
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 11:31 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Reverting rectangle contour behavour in FC14 to FC11-style? (and a couple other FC14 questions)

Post by NAL »

To respond:

1) I'm aware of this. But the Rectangle and Circle tools used to always have their contours clockwise, which made them predictable and easier to work with. Now, since they sometimes generate counterclockwise (even if they aren't technically overlapping another shape, just on the edge of it), I find them more awkward to work with - I have to drag the new rectangle/circle over the shapes to test its polarity.

I would much prefer if, as an option, I could set them to always generate clockwise, which is how the functions operated in FC11.

2) The boundaries don't snap to the grid when gridlock is enabled any more. This has also changed since FC11, it used to work and it does not in FC14.

3) Thank you for the video - it's shown me a few things I hadn't worked out yet! I would still personally prefer if the glyph editor window could be set to floating-by-default, though. Everything else, I really like having pinned, but I'm used to the workflow of double-clicking a glyph in a font, altering it, and then closing it and jumping to a different one.

This is something I can get used to so it's the lowest-priority of my three points, though. And I really do appreciate the general usability improvements that FC14's docking feature brings to the table (just being able to have the preview window snapped to the bottom is excellent).
Allison James
Chequered Ink fonts
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