Font Forum

After clicking on a folder (of any kind) in the navigation pane, then opening the first glyph, doing some edits, I expect the "Next Glyph" button to move to the next glyph in the folder...not the next one in the entire font. Without this, these buttons are mostly useless, except at the beginning of font design, when you want to touch all the glyphs.

But, when you do some later work (like fixing Validation errors, or working on a set of tagged glyphs), moving to the next glyph in the entire font is absolutely not what anybody wants to do...they want to move to the next glyph in what they are currently working on...tagged, Unicode subrange, etc.

It's clearly not a bug, but I can see that more options for moving to the next glyph depending on the sort order or other categories might be useful, if rather complicated to implement.

If I am fixing validation errors, I will close the glyph edit window then open the next glyph with a validation error.

There are some options on the Tools menu to sort glyphs, e.g. by Unicode codepoint, but since my fonts may have a lot of unmapped glyphs and some multi-mapped glyphs, I tend not to use that.

The sort options on the Overview toolbar don't change the order of glyphs in the glyph index.

It's clearly not a bug, it's a feature.

However it would be more useful if the feature could be re-arranged to move on to the next 'displayed' glyph in the grid rather than the next glyph in the font.

I don't know how many times I have alt-right arrow to move to the next bad glyph.

I would be happy if the button or shortcut moved to the next glyph needing attention after running the Validation, or even between glyphs with a tag.

To summarize this request; you want to move to the next visible glyph within the current selected category. If so, is it expected to move to the first glyph in case the current glyph is not within the category?

For example, you select the Uppercase Letters category, and open the first glyph which happens to be Latin capital letter A. The view is sorted by glyph name. Then you click next, while you are within the glyph edit window. You then move to glyph Aacute, then Abreve. Now you select the Numbers category, go back to the Abreve, and select Next Glyph. Since Abreve is not in the current selected category, you will move to the first glyph in the Numbers category, which happens to be eight.

For myself, either on a tag basis or in the errors section following a validation (which is my main care) would be nice. Opening a glyph after running a validation, closing, opening the next one, ad infinitum, until one is finished is a lot of clicking.

Mike

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:It's clearly not a bug

OK, how often do you use those buttons now? I suspect that because of the way they work now, nobody uses them. If nobody uses a feature because it does not work the way people expect, it's a bug.

If I am fixing validation errors, I will close the glyph edit window then open the next glyph with a validation error.

Yeah, and wouldn't it be a lot easier just to hit "next glyph", and have it open in the same tab?

Erwin Denissen wrote:To summarize this request; you want to move to the next visible glyph within the current selected category. If so, is it expected to move to the first glyph in case the current glyph is not within the category?

OK, I see the issue, and why it currently works the way it does. Obviously, somebody brought this subject up at a programming meeting, and because of the example you give, it was decided to make the feature completely useless instead of occasionally confusing.

My opinion is that in the case you give, behavior then doesn't really matter...whatever is easier or seems more intuitive to most people is fine, because you aren't yet in the work flow of "select category, open glyph, edit, move to next". Even disabling the buttons completely would be a valid choice.

nabsltd wrote:

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:It's clearly not a bug

OK, how often do you use those buttons now? I suspect that because of the way they work now, nobody uses them. If nobody uses a feature because it does not work the way people expect, it's a bug.

I use the buttons a lot of the time, so the current configureaton works adequately in my opinion, but I must admit it would be better if the 'next glyph' button moved to the next displayed glyph in the grid (or the first one in the grid if the current glyph is not in the grid).

nabsltd wrote:OK, how often do you use those buttons now?

Rarely, because the shortcuts Alt Left/Right are much easier. Your suspicions are unfounded, as it does work the way that I expect.

If I am fixing validation errors, I will close the glyph edit window then open the next glyph with a validation error.

nabsltd wrote:Yeah, and wouldn't it be a lot easier just to hit "next glyph", and have it open in the same tab?

In that case yes, but there are many different scenarios that need to be discussed without shouting "bug" where there is none, and without insulting other users or the Development Team.

Wherever a wanted feature is not yet implemented, one can find work-arounds, e.g. opening a dozen glyph edit windows at a time, fixing each issue, then closing the Window (with Ctrl W).

There is a handful of long term users and beta testers who suggest improvements in a civilised manner, and Erwin usually obliges if it's practical, as you can see from the Implemented Feature Requests subforum. The Validation category is a recent addition that resulted from many requests to make the Validation report non-modal (which was impractical).

PJMiller wrote:I use the buttons a lot of the time, so the current configureaton works adequately in my opinion, but I must admit it would be better if the 'next glyph' button moved to the next displayed glyph in the grid (or the first one in the grid if the current glyph is not in the grid).

I think this would be a subtle improvement, so we'll try to find out if this is easy to implement.

Maybe I didn't think about my answer too deeply. I said I use the 'next glyph' button a lot, hmmm .... I mostly use the keyboard shortcut (Alt + right) more often than the toolbar button but in my head they are the same and I can't recall what proportion of the time I use the toolbar button and what proportion of the time I use the keyboard shortcut, but in my mind they are equivalent because they do the same thing.

Nevertheless I think it would be more useful for the 'next glyph' command to move on to the next glyph in the currently displayed grid (or the first one in the grid if the current glyph is not in the grid).

I hope this helps.

We'll have this covered with the next upcoming release.

Excellent, Erwin!

Anything that saves time adds up.

This works well. If one uses "Open in New Window" in a Glyph Edit Window, one can escape from the filtered list to browse all glyphs. Closing the new window reverts to the filtered list in the original window.