User manual FONTLAB FONTLAB 4.6

[. . . ] FontLab 4. 6 ® for Windows® User Manual FontLab 4 Copyright ©1992-2003 by FontLab, Ltd. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any software referred to herein is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license. FontLab, FontLab logo, ScanFont, TypeTool, SigMaker, AsiaFont Studio, FontAudit and VectorPaint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of FontLab, Ltd. [. . . ] If you want to begin a new contour but its starting point is on an existing contour press the CTRL key to force FontLab to create a new contour. How to modify an existing contour When you move the cursor of the Contour tool onto an existing contour or node, it changes. If you begin drawing (without holding down the CTRL key) the new contour will be inserted into the existing one. If the finishing point of your drawing is on an existing contour also, and the starting and finishing points are on the same contour, then the new drawing will replace the part of the existing contour that lies between the starting and finishing points. How to draw a single curve Hold the SHIFT key down when you release the mouse button after drawing a new line. This is a good way to draw a new contour step-by-step. 359 FontLab 4 Brush Tool The brush tool works like the usual bitmap brush that you find in any bitmap-editing program. Draw the stroke by dragging the mouse and finish drawing it by releasing the mouse button. To change the color of the brush, use the color selection buttons on the Vector Paint toolbar: for the "empty" color for the "auto" color for the "black" color for the "white" color Other brush options are accessible in the Vector Paint options menu: You can paint with round or calligraphic brushes of different widths: Calligraphic-style brush Round brush 20 unit wide line 40 unit wide line 80 unit wide line 120 unit wide line 360 Glyph Window You can also specify a brush stroke shape. Press the shape in the popup menu: button and select a This is an example of different brush strokes: 361 FontLab 4 VectorPaint Options You can also change the brush properties in the Vector Paint Options dialog box. To open the Options dialog box, choose the Options command in the options menu ( ). You will see following dialog box: In the Options dialog box you can enter the width of the brush and change the slant angle of a calligraphic brush. Additionally, you can select how the brush strokes are started and finished. Choose the brush's starting and finishing shape by activating one of the radio buttons. You can also select the style of the connection between two sequential segments of brush strokes. Icons near the radio buttons give an explanation of the styles of connections. Last field in the Brush options area lets you to select the shape of the brush stroke. Other options relate to the Polygon tool (described later) and the option for automatic activation of the Transform operation. 362 Glyph Window To choose one of the Polygon tool modes use the options in the Polygon tool field. If you choose Normal (contour) Polygon the polygon tool will create a simple contour that can include vectors and curves. If you choose the Brush trace option the current brush will be applied to the created polygon's contour. In the Brush trace mode you cannot draw curves while defining a new polygon. If you mark the Automatically Activate Transform Operation check box and select the Transparent painting color the Transform operation will be activated and applied to the contour that you created after the completion of any paint action. The last option, Automatically switch editing layers. . . , allows you to automatically switch editing layers when you enter the VectorPaint mode. To set this option, first turn it on; then enter VectorPaint mode for the first time and switch editing layers to create the most comfortable environment. For example, in Edit mode you may use an unfilled outline with all nodes switched on. [. . . ] This class contains seven most important members: ifont font ifontslist iglyph glyph count count_selected Index of the active font Current font as a Font object Index of currently selected font in the fonts list panel Index of the currently active glyph in the current font Current glyph as a Glyph object Read-only - number of opened fonts Number of selected glyphs in the Font Window You can also access the fl object as a list of Font-type objects: print fl[0]. font_name 702 Macro Programming There are several important methods: Close(fontindex) Open(filename) Open(filename, addtolist) Save(filename) Save (fontindex, filename) Add(font) UpdateFont() UpdateFont(fontindex) UpdateGlyph() UpdateGlyph (glyphindex) EditGlyph() EditGlyph (glyphindex) Selected() Selected(glyphindex) Select(glyphid) Select(glyphid, value) Unselect() Message(message, question, OKstring, Cancelstring) BeginProgress(title, counts) EndProgress() TickProgress(tick) Closes the current or 'fontindex' font Opens the font from the file using the current opening options. If 'addtolist' is True, the font is added to FontLab's font list Saves the current or selected font using the standard FontLab Save routine Adds 'font' to the list of open fonts and opens the Font Window for it Updates the current font or 'fontindex' (slow operation) Updates the current or 'glyphindex' glyph of the current font Opens a Glyph window for the 'glyphindex' glyph in the current font Returns True if the current glyph or 'glyphindex' glyph is selected (relatively slow operation) Changes the glyph's selection state. 'glyphid' may be string (glyph name), Uni (Unicode index) or integer (glyph index) Deselects all glyphs in the current font (fast operation) Shows the alert message dialog box, all the parameters but the first can be omitted Opens the Progress dialog box with. 'counts' number of 'ticks' Closes the Progress dialog box Updates the Progress bar, returns False if Cancel button was pressed. [. . . ]