this_file	README.md

FontLab practical scripts

242 practical tools for FontLab 9: 69 sample adaptations and 173 additional Workspace handoff (2026-11-03): Issue 123 development is paused. Accepted feature faed9163 restores three original node actions. Local ABannotates49 nonreserved terminal controls and preserves two refused chooser owners. Task 2records605 affected passes plus one current-source pin failure; complete ABsuite/coverage/artifact acceptance is pending. tools. Scripts inspect, proof and edit fonts through FontLab's native APIs, PythonQt and shared App helpers. The menu has 14 one-level categories.

Current source includes Metrics, Names and Anchors editors; component writers; master navigation, backups and layer copying; contour editing, generators and hint tools; feature tools; kerning editors; proof texts; reports and drawing panels. The porting backlog records source dispositions and gaps.

New ports require native acceptance. Source tests do not establish correct FontLab Undo/Redo, saved font state or panel lifetime. Historical sample acceptance remains 68 of 130; the Italic Angle candidate and later ports retain their separate checks. Menu counts describe available source files.

Writers disclose queued native glyph ids and the possible modification-date changes (FontLab issue 8537). They never clear the queue or normalise unrelated dates.

Requirements and installation

Use FontLab 9 with embedded Python 3.11 arm64 on Apple Silicon. Keep matching versions of fontlab-fly, fontlab-fontlabapp and fontlab-fontport available to FontLab. Some tools use the App fontui extra. Trial Font Maker needs the public fontTools package; FontLab's private namespace does not supply it. Glyport supplies Glyphs-specific compatibility and category metadata where used.

The current App floor is fontlab-fontlabapp>=1.2.0: these scripts import the domain module layout introduced in App 1.2.0. Use matching 1.2.0 package-set releases of Fly, App and Fontport. Native workflow acceptance and promotion remain separate from the source dependency floor.

Editable installation into FontLab is owner-managed. Do not install packages into FontLab, replace its Qt bindings or change its Python site-packages from a test command. This repository is a menu collection, not an installable runtime Python package. Its pyproject.toml configures documentation tools.

After the owner provisions dependencies:

1. Open FontLab's Scripts folder from the application.
2. Copy the category folders inside this repository's Scripts/ into it.
3. Keep the layout Scripts/<Category>/<Tool>.py; FontLab accepts only one category level. Do not add a second nested folder.
4. Open a copy of a font. Select the required glyphs and master, then choose the tool in FontLab's Scripts menu. Read its source docstring for controls, supported scopes and refusals.

Use a dedicated FontLab session and owned fonts for acceptance tests. Keep normal work and original fonts outside that session.

Examples

• Metrics > Scale Advances: select glyphs in the Font window, choose current or all masters, enter a percentage, inspect the preview and press Apply. The outline stays centred. Automatic layers and unsafe dependencies are kept or refused. A failure after a write asks for Edit > Undo.
• Masters > Duplicate Current Layer: back up the current master or all masters of selected glyphs with a custom suffix. Existing backups appear in an inventory. Names use <master> backup <suffix> with collision numbering.
• Masters > Copy Layer Between Masters: select the source and tick target masters. Changing the source selects all other masters again.
• Contours > Round Coordinates: round nodes, component offsets and, by default, anchors. Untick Anchors to keep their coordinates. Duplicate-anchor layers and an anchor move to the origin are kept with a diagnosis.
• Names > Duplicate Unicodes: scan the whole font, choose assignments to keep or remove, close Glyph editors and activate the Font window before Apply.
• Proof > Text Filter: simplify text with persistent input/output and regex fields. Reset keeps input; New Tab uses the font captured when the tool opened.
• Utilities > Text Holder: keep proof text in an editable persistent window; Find and replacement operate on the selection or whole text. Save keeps the panel open. See the Text Holder guide.

Read-only tools can change selection, open tabs or show panels. Source getters also need native preservation checks. Writer history descriptions state the intended operation; new ports still need actual Undo/Redo and save/reopen proof.

Files and modules

Path	Purpose
Scripts/	Practical menu entry points; typed Python 3.11, lazy Fly imports.
menu_layout.py	Resolve current paths and verify historical release bytes.
tools/migrate_app_paths.py	Rewrite App paths from the sibling alias oracle; --check audits pending rewrites.
migration.json	Historical sample source/destination paths and hashes.
menu-moves.json, menu-revisions.json	Explicit path and comment overlays.
additional-tools.json	Additional tool provenance, current hashes and status.
rescue-index.json	Retired launcher identities and external source hashes.
original-provenance.json	Additional upstream source and resource identities.
PORTING-BACKLOG.md	Ported, duplicate and unavailable behaviour dispositions.
tests/, test.sh	Offline menu, helper, provenance and portability checks.
tests_docs/	Documentation source-inclusion and licence distribution tests.
src_docs/build.py, src_docs/mkdocs.yml	Catalogue generation and strict site build.
src_docs/md/	Authored site pages and generated menu pages.
.build/menu-sources/, .build/site/	Generated source snapshots and site output.
docs/	Retained guides; some early examples use historical layouts.
NOTICE, LICENSE	Attribution and licence terms.

Shared code is supplied by sibling packages. General panels, native guards, planners and history helpers belong in fontlabapp, reached as fly.ap. Use domain imports such as fly.ap.core.scripting and fly.ap.masters.inspect.model. These scripts require an App build with the domain layout. Feature source uses fly.fp.feature_blocks. Fontport holds fontParts/UFO integration; Glyport holds Glyphs.app compatibility. Scripts do not load other menu scripts as libraries. No lessons package is shipped here.

migration.json is a frozen v0.2.0 record, not current pins.

Runtime tests

Prerequisites: a prepared Python 3.11 arm64 test .venv with pytest and the matching App and Fontport packages installed, plus App test dependencies. Use the sibling Fly checkout on PYTHONPATH. Set SCRIPTMIX_TEST_VENV to that prepared environment's absolute path. It must be separate from the documentation .venv, which uses Python 3.12 or later. Run from this repository root:

export PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 PYTEST_DISABLE_PLUGIN_AUTOLOAD=1
export UV_CACHE_DIR="$TMPDIR/fontlab-scriptmix-uv-cache"
export PYTHONPATH="$(cd ../fontlab-fly/src && pwd)"
unset SCRIPTMIX_APP_SOURCE SCRIPTMIX_FONTPORT_SOURCE
VIRTUAL_ENV="$SCRIPTMIX_TEST_VENV" uv run --active --no-project \
  --python cpython-3.11-macos-aarch64-none \
  python -B -m pytest -q -p no:cacheprovider tests

The full suite regenerates menu documentation in place. Run it when those outputs may be refreshed. To provision an isolated dependency set instead, test.sh accepts explicit App and Fontport wheels or checkouts:

export SCRIPTMIX_APP_REQUIREMENT="/absolute/path/to/fontlab_fontlabapp-1.2.0-py3-none-any.whl"
export SCRIPTMIX_EXTRA_REQUIREMENTS="/absolute/path/to/fontlab_fontport-1.2.0-py3-none-any.whl"
export SCRIPTMIX_PYTHON="cpython-3.11-macos-aarch64-none"
sh test.sh -p no:cacheprovider

Supply existing reviewed artifacts with genuine build metadata; do not override package versions. Use a freshly built matching wheel or an approved prepared environment when validating changed dependencies. Cached builds with the same development version can be stale. These tests do not modify the live FontLab installation.

Lint checks existing source without rewriting it. Ruff 0.14.10 reports 87 existing findings across the paths below; fixes remain open:

uv run --no-project --python cpython-3.11-macos-aarch64-none \
  --with ruff==0.14.10 ruff check --no-cache --target-version py311 \
  Scripts tests tests_docs menu_layout.py src_docs/build.py

External original-source audits

Default tests verify recorded paths/hashes and current files without original source bytes. Historical rescued/... paths identify an external archive: fontlab-python-scriptmix-rescued.tar.gz, SHA-256 ffa611cfec3f2550400989abff51cea1a391d714a91ea4863ca0610711dd4b32.

Restore it outside the repository. Set FONTLAB_PRESERVED_ROOT to the directory containing rescued/. To the prepared runtime pytest command, or to test.sh, append --audit-rescued-sources --original-source-root /path/to/workspace. The workspace path contains fontlab-python-examples; it enables the Masters, Proof, Reports and Inspectors original-source comparisons.

An absent source root skips the corresponding optional byte audit. A present archive with a missing file or mismatched hash fails. The full archive audit collects all missing/mismatched entries before failing. Current-file checks remain mandatory. Audits read archived bytes; they do not execute originals.

Documentation tests and build

The documentation tests can run independently on arm64 Python 3.11. They need pytest, the real codeinclude plugin and PyYAML; this command supplies them. Put uv cache and temporary fixtures in external scratch space. Git distribution tests use temporary repositories and require a working Git executable on PATH.

PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH" PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 \
  PYTEST_DISABLE_PLUGIN_AUTOLOAD=1 \
  uv run --no-project --python cpython-3.11-macos-aarch64-none \
  --with pytest --with mkdocs-codeinclude-plugin==0.3.1 --with PyYAML \
  python -B -m pytest -q -p no:cacheprovider tests_docs

The full site SDK requires Python 3.12 or later, as declared in pyproject.toml. It uses the locked ProperDocs/MaterialX stack in its own prepared .venv. ./build.sh --offline syncs that environment, regenerates the catalogue and builds the site strictly. Offline builds require all locked dependencies cached. ./build.sh --serve --offline starts a local preview. Generated output stays in .build/site/; authored guides in docs/ are kept. Local tests and builds do not prove site publication or complete browser-asset licence review.

Licence

First-party code uses Apache-2.0. NOTICE retains upstream credits, full notices and tool-specific terms. Third-party and Glyphs-corpus original bodies are not copied into public code or the site. The author's own Apache-2.0 FontLab samples may be adapted; source_body_redistributed records such use. Browser assets have separate terms in the documentation notices. Preserve all source identities and licence texts when distributing the collection.