FontForge Changelog

What's new in FontForge 01-January-2023

Jan 1, 2023

Display the block name for reserved code points by @dscorbett in #4934
Don't respond to wheel scrolls for buttons/tabsets by @jtanx in #4940
gfilechooser.c: fix behaviour when changing file type by @jtanx in #4939
Better control-drag handling for line-adjacent points by @skef in #4945
Fix resolution of program root by @jtanx in #4956
Fix missed nonextcp edit by @skef in #4958
Support ToUnicode extraction from PDFs for Type3 fonts by @aidos in #4961
Add resource file and Windows application manifest by @jtanx in #4950
Fix name extraction for Type3 fonts from pdfs by @aidos in #4960
cmake: Install fonttools and pycontrib by @jtojnar in #4941
Fix InfoPlist.strings file name. by @MaddTheSane in #4962
Fix normalisation of absolute paths by @jtanx in #4963
Handle non-array cm transforms while reading graphics stream from PDFs by @aidos in #4965
Fix rect extraction from graphics stream for type3 fonts by @aidos in #4967
Change which lookup types are suggested for jamo features by @dscorbett in #4994
Better line handling in simplify by @skef in #4981
Use 'cmap' for Adobe-Identity-0 CID fonts by @dscorbett in #4993
Fix ChangeGlyph calcluations relative to new nonext/prevcp conventions by @skef in #4979
Docs composite glyph by @skinkie in #4971
FVSplineFontPieceMeal: Check that the clut is present before applying conversion by @jtanx in #4999
Expand the lists of languages and scripts by @dscorbett in #4982
Add flags to Python font.transform() by @skef in #4980
Support setting SplineChar width from importOutlines. by @frank-trampe in #5005
Undefine "extended" macro temporarily on GNU Hurd by @anthonyfok in #5047
Define PATH_MAX and MAXPATHLEN for GNU/Hurd compatibility by @anthonyfok in #5046
Fix Ascent & Descent Importing from SVG Font by @GroveDG in #5035
Prevent floating point shenanigans in loop termination (fixes #5012) by @skef in #5013
GroupFindLPos() in fontforgeexe/groupsdlg.c null pointer fix by @Omnikron13 in #5025
Fix drawing outside of expose calls by @jtanx in #4949
Fixed one more typo by @MahdiAljazairi in #5055
Upgrade GitHub Actions by @cclauss in #5014
Prevents memory underflow in GFileMimeType() in gutils/fsys.c by @Omnikron13 in #5018
Add a preference for saving editor state by @khaledhosny in #5044
splineutil.c: prevent hang on nan input by @jtanx in #5058
Shell-quote command sent to compressor in BDF by @ctrlcctrlv in #5060
Fix pfadecrypt bugs by @zjw in #5074
Include SFDUTF7 functions in libfontforge.so by @ctrlcctrlv in #5078
splinefit.c: Improvements to merge/simplify by @Alatius in #5095
RFE: [FEAT] When reference to non-existent glyphs are present in an OpenTy… by @rajeeshknambiar in #4097
docs: Python scripting - update font.mergeFeature with details of boo… by @rajeeshknambiar in #5107
Fix logic for CharString double-movetos after PR 4685 by @skef in #5120
Upgrade to Unicode 15.0.0 and fix and expand the script lists by @dscorbett in #5110
Fix broken link on scripting page by @bkmgit in #5135
Fix typo in man page by @h3xx in #5106
Fix painting behaviour of the ruler linger window and layer change dialog by @jtanx in #5163
fontinfo.c: fix crash from uninitialised other_pos by @jtanx in #5165
tottfgpos: Fix needless warning about 16-bit field by @Finii in #5136
ufo.c: emit guidelines key by @jtanx in #5166
fvmetrics.c: partial revert of 1033bc6 by @jtanx in #5167
Update tranlsations from Crowdin by @jtanx in #5168
Fix woff2 decoding by @jtanx in #5160
Record unicode cmap encodings when one glyph is in multiple slots by @skef in #4586

New in FontForge 03-March-2022 (Mar 17, 2022)

New in FontForge 07-November-2020 (Nov 9, 2020)

New in FontForge 14-March-2020 (Mar 14, 2020)

Significant changes include the following:
FontForge now has much improved stroke expansion functionality. The main change is that it actually works most of the time. New features include support for arbitrary convex nibs and the miter-clip and arc join styles from SVG 2. All functionality is accessible from the Python and native APIs. (By @skef.)
Remove overlap handles certain important edge cases better. (By @skef and @frank-trampe.)
The Python API now has a function called genericGlyphChange that matches the "Change Glyph" command in the GUI. See #4133 for more details. (By @skef.)
The Python API now has functions for getting Unicode script and for interrogating glyph boundaries. (By @ctrlcctrlv.)
One can now use text flags (rather than just numerical flags) when opening a font file via the Python API. (By @skef.)
UFO import now outputs the note field properly. (By @skef.)
SVG import is much more robust. (By @skef.)
We have dropped most gnulib and autotools logic in favor of CMake, which dramatically simplifies the build system and just as dramatically improves build time. (By @jtanx.)
As part of the switch to CMake, per the deprecation of Python 2, and per the lack of objections to the proposal on the mailing list, we have dropped support for building FontForge with Python 2 support. The non-build-system Python 2 code remains, but it is neither tested nor maintained nor supported and is likely to follow a trajectory of decay and then removal.
Documentation is now rendered in Sphinx, which makes maintenance and improvement easier. (By @jtanx.)
Translations now happen on crowdin, which makes contributions easier. (By @jtanx.)
We got such a contribution for Croatian. (By @milotype.)
Character view point coloring is more consistent, and preview fills support transparency. (By @skef.)
The user can now move and close tabs in the character view. (By @ctrlcctrlv.)
The metrics view now allows for entry of negative kerning values and runs a bit more smoothly. (By @ctrlcctrlv.)
There is now a warning when a user is about to discard an unsaved script. (By @ctrlcctrlv.)
We fixed bugs all over, as always, with particular attention given to the metrics view, Python, Spiro, and high-resolution displays.

New in FontForge 01-August-2019 (Aug 1, 2019)

New in FontForge 13-April-2019 (Apr 15, 2019)

New in FontForge 17-March-2019 (Mar 17, 2019)

New in FontForge 31-Jul-2017 (R2) (Aug 1, 2017)

New in FontForge 31-Jul-2017 (Aug 1, 2017)

New in FontForge 17-Jun-2017 (Aug 1, 2017)

New in FontForge 4-Oct-2016 (Oct 10, 2016)

New in FontForge 23-Sept-2016 (Oct 10, 2016)

New in FontForge 14-Sept-2016 (Oct 10, 2016)

New in FontForge 13-Aug-2016 (Oct 10, 2016)

New in FontForge 7-Apr-2016 (Jul 31, 2016)

New in FontForge 05-04-16 (Jul 31, 2016)

New in FontForge 24-August-2015 (Aug 26, 2015)

New in FontForge 13-06-15 (Jul 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 30-05-15 (Jul 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 26-05-15 (Jul 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 24-05-15 (Jul 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 03-04-15 (May 1, 2015)

New in FontForge 03-01-15 (May 1, 2015)

New in FontForge 11-11-14 (Jan 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 18-10-14 (Jan 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 20-06-14 (Jan 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 14-06-14 (Jan 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 31-05-13 (Jan 21, 2015)

New in FontForge 20090622 (Jun 23, 2009)

Apple seems to have broken the X11 clipboard around 10.5.7. Or so other people tell me. I can't reproduce the issue on my 10.5.7 system.
I hope I have worked around this by adding a preference item
File->Preferences->Generic->ExportClipboard
Turn this Off if the clipboard doesn't seem to work.
Peter Baker says that a solution is to go into X11 Preferences, click on the "Input" tab, and uncheck "Enable key equivalents under X11".
Possibly downloading a new set of developer tools will fix it:
http://developer.apple.com/Tools/
(then log in, (or become a member & log in, it's free))
Click on Downloads
In the "Downloads" side bar, click on "Developer Tools"
Download and Install 3.1.3
Add support for friendly names attached to style set features (New in OTF 1.6).
Add support for Mark Sets (New in OTF 1.6)
Serhij Dubyk has provided a Ukrainian UI.
Alexandre Prokoudine has updated the Russian UI.
Updated Polish translation from Michal
Various patches from Michal fixing some out of bound array references.
Added a cvt.find method to the python cvt object which returns the index in the cvt table of a given value (or -1 if not found).
Two issues:
Apple has changed the name of the preference file for X11. Annoying. Pointless.
Apple (or xorg) has changed the default setting of DISPLAY.
Together these meant that ff did not use appropriate command keys in the menus.
I wish Apple wouldn't do pointless changes.
When faced with non-integral coordinates ff would sometimes introduce rounding errors so the start and end of a contour were slightly different in type1 output. I think this is now fixed...
Fix some problems with the non-linear transform dlg.
Add a nltransform method (non-linear transform) to python font, glyph and layer.
python simplify could crash.
Patch by Michal to fix problem when compiled with long doubles.
If used twice, tilepath would screw up memory.
Someone wants a Reverse contour direction command (in addition to correct contour direction).
The code used to check bounding boxes in otf fonts had a bug which caused it to report a minimum value of 0 when the min value was positive. This meant we got erroneous reports of points outside the font's bounding box in fontlint.
The code used to check spline intersections had a typo which occasionally caused erroneous intersections to be reported.
fontlint said bad 'glyf' table when it meant bad glyph data in CFF table.
If a font had multiple glyphs in the ff clipboard, and we sent that clipboard through X11 (rather than just using the internal clip) then only one glyph would come out on the other side. Provide a mechanism for specifying multiple glyphs in the X clipboard too.
Refined fix to 'kern pair loss' problem, reported by Louis Simard. There probably was also a similar 'ligature loss' problem.
Fixed buffer overrun when filling GASP with default values.
Enlarging Metrics window made the feature pane and kerning values grid illegible.
Fixed a bug reported by Louis Simard:
'Build composite glyph' was enabled in wrong situations and crashed.
when saving an sfd after adding a new "kerning by classes" subtable and cancelling its edit dialog.
FF crashes just after closing an open spiro contour (by dragging its first point over the last one, and then a bit further).
When reading strings from the name table, certain platform/specific settings would cause ff to:
1. read the wrong string
2. screw up memory.
Consolidate various mechanisms for finding the xHeight/capHeight of a font. Look for flat lines at the top of appropriate glyphs and then snap to the closest bluevalue. If no flat lines, then try curves.
Output Cap/X Height into UFO.
Add new python commands
font.capHeight
font.xHeight
Was outputting dates within but should be in when generating UFO files.
A font with erroneous GSUB tables (referring to non-existant glyphs) and an incomplete set of glyphs (caused by having bitmaps for glyphs without outlines) caused ff to crash.
In svg paths, if you omit a command after a 'moveto' then it defaults to a lineto, not another moveto.
Add a python font.saveNamelist(filename) command.
Jakub Steiner thinks it would be a good idea if the tool bindings of mouse clicks in the glyph editor were sticky across invocations.
Werner finds a place where the new jstf code was corrupting memory.
Cancelling Element->Validation->Set Extremum Bound caused a crash.
When closing a metrics view associated with a CID keyed font, ff would crash.
Someone wanted to be able to set both the left and right side bearings at the same time.
Patch by Alexey to unlink bitmap code.
Barry points out it would be better to use fputs when I use fprintf.
If the user didn't have freetype, then the anti-aliased metrics view was faint.
Oops, could write but not read styleset names from a feature file.
Show Att didn't display cursive anchor positioning anchor classes properly.
Panov wants a python function to determine the extent in the x direction of a contour when y is fix. That is, the minimum and maximum values x can attain for a given y. And vice versa.
Extend this a little so the user can specify a range of y values (return the extent in x when y is between ybottom and ytop).
contour.xBoundsAtY(ybottom[,ytop])
contour.yBoundsAtX(xleft[,xright])
layer.xBoundsAtY(ybottom[,ytop])
layer.yBoundsAtX(xleft[,xright])
And that appears not to be what he wants anyway. Oh well.
Dave wants a python function to return a random text string.
o font.randomText(script[,lang])
If ff opened a bad bitmap font file and tried to place it in a font's background layer, ff would crash.
Adjusting the Previous Control Point from the Get Info (point) window of an HVCurve point had very odd effects.
Ubuntu now checks that if you use "%3$s" in a sprintf format string you must also use "%1$" and "%2$".
Patch by Nicolas Spalinger improving OFL tooltip.
Patch by Andrey Panov to add GetAnchorPoints to legacy scripting.
Widhaya Trisarnwadhana points out that the mnemonic _N is bound to two items in the View menu of outline glyphs.
I let people assign any name to glyphs in the private use area without destroying the encoding. But due to a bug, if you changed the glyph's encoding to the PUA it fell into that code and would not change the font's encoding either.
If a point had control points which were less than 1 em-unit from it, then FF would sometimes think it was a curve point when it wasn't. That's probably still true, but some of the more egregious cases have been fixed.
Panov suggests that for cubic points, when we round them we should not round the locations of the controls but should round the distance from the on-curve point. Things are a bit trickier for quadratic controls. If the on-curve point is interpolated, then obviously the controls should be rounded and not the on-curve point.
Exporting bitmap formats chose the wrong format.

New in FontForge 20090224 (Feb 25, 2009)

Support for UFO version 2.
If a CID font contained a ".notdef" glyph, then when FF generated a Type1 CID font resource from it, FF would omit the .notdef glyph.
Patch from Panov to allow legacy scripting to guess values for the private dictionary. PrivateGuess(key).
Werner wants to know what version of freetype ff is using. So the debug window now shows this on the info line (I presume that's where it is most important).
Andreas Neustifter provided a FontForge icon with a transparent background (or the mac).
In TrueType debugging Werner originally asked to mark pixels which changed state. (So there were four states: on and still on, just recently turned on, just recently turned off, always off). Now he'd like to see exactly the current state.
People complain that under window managers that try to behave like MS Windows, the palettes slowly walk off the screen. This patch should (almost) fix that. A palette may start to walk off but each time it does, it will be brought back close to the zero point.
Pango doesn't like a utf8 string which consists solely of a variation selector. So don't draw them.
Werner doesn't want to see anchor points when debugging.
Change weight from the fontview usually crashed.
In the past if someone had a glyph with a negative advance width, FF would output a large postive number to the 'hmtx' table, instead output 0.
Yet another undo problem caused by the [Apply] button in the expand stroke dlg. This one on cancelling the dlg.
Werner wants to see what points the current instruction is going to move, so when debugging highlight these points. Also draw circles around the points which are used as reference points.
FF needed libxml to compile.
If there were no undoes in a glyph then Expand Stroke would crash.
Werner suggests adding a check that advance widths are all less than hhea.advanceWidthMax
Ah. Werner wants ff to tell him when an isFixedPitch font has a glyph with an andvance width which differs from advanceWidthMax.
Add a check that glyphs are within the font's bounding box too.
When creating a metrics view with many glyphs, one of which needed to be autohinted, then ff might crash.
Width was not set when building some small-caps glyphs out of references.
When I boxified Page Setup a typo meant that one radio button occurred twice and another got lost. Resulting in -- a crash.
Some dialogs don't get destroyed after they are finished with. Instead they hang around, invisible, containing state information that becomes relevant next time they appear. They need to be able to change their transient_for hints, since they may pop up with a new owner window.
Points of extrema weren't being marked correctly in the glyph view.
Mark to ligature anchor points not output properly to feature files.
Another member problem in merge fonts.