The (PS) Alignment Zones dialog only shows 4 zones at a time, I think it should show all 12 possible zones simultaneously.
I can now add much more than 6top/6bottom zones, how can I divide them over separate font/private dictionaries? I think for CFF it should be limited to 6/6, for CFF2 it should be groups of 12 linked to a font dict. FontStudio from 1991 actually had an interface to make (named) zones only show up in a subset of the font, they foresaw the arrival of CFF2 3 decades ago. 
When I click the rotation arrow button, G3 crashes.
The alignment zone parameter and dialog is not used on export. It only stores the zones that could not be converted into metrics automatically.
When we will get to implement CFF2, the filters in the metrics will be used to divide the font into multiple font dicts.
I am confused. I open a CFF font with 8 alignment zones in Glyphs 3. All 8 zones appear in custom parameters. You are saying these Custom Parameters Alignment Zones are not used on export? What is the logic behind that?
In a glyph window, only 2 zones appear. In a glyph with an ascender I see only the zone for baseline and x-height, but not the zone or descender, cap-height or ascender. Why don’t I see all zones as they were defined in the font?
In Font Info, Masters, Metrics, only 3 out of 8 zones show up by having a thickness. Where are the other 5 zones? Why are zones designated as Metrics? I don’t think metrics and zones should be mixed like this. Why would you want to automatically convert zones into metrics when that is unlikely to be successful?
The Metrics for Ascender and Descender of the CFF font that I opened correspond to typoAscender and typoDescender, with a sum of 1000, and a thickness of 0. But obviously the real Ascender and Descender zones have different values and do not sum to 1000. The UI does not clarify if these Metrics should be typoAscender/Desc or actual alignment zones.
The CFF font is single master. The Family Alignment Zones are under Font > Custom Parameters, the normal Alignment Zones are under Masters > Custom Parameters.
I find this separation in placement and functionality of strongly related values really confusing in a UI for a single font.
In Glyphs 2, Metrics and Zones are separated in Font Info, and all zones that were defined in the CFF, also show up when I open a glyph window. From my point of view, things go awfully wrong in Glyph 3, UI-wise and round-trip-wise. I open a font with 8 zones, and it exports with only 3 alignment zones.
I can set Custom Parameters for Family zones in Font and Exports, both work and family zones survive a round trip, but 5 out of 8 normal zones are killed in the process.
I understand your problem and will have another look at it.
The values in Master > Metrics should always be design values and not match any requirement (like sum up to 1000). If you like to set specific values, there are custom parameters for that.
Just a bit background why I did it like this: It is mostly about supporting metrics and zones for different scripts. This will be the most useful (for now) during design to not show e.g. the x-height when designing Indic or CJK fonts. (And those values can then be written to different font dicts when I get to support CFF2.)
I can’t find this?
Has it been removed?
I’m having trouble gettign Family Alignment Zones to pair up with G3 Metrics info. Ideally both Alignment and Family should be side by side and so it is easy to see which zone relates to which.
I can see Family Alignment Zones there but where is Alignment Zones? It would need to be under each Master as each entry is specific to a Master design
The alignment zones that show up in Masters > custom parameters are a fallback for zones that can’t be assigned to metrics, when importing glyphs 2 files
Ok. That explains why I can’t add more to that field when I copy and paste it to a new G3 file.
I’m having difficulty in exporting fonts with a full range of zones and the Regular sizes set as Family Alignment Zones. Importing a built .otf to OTMA shows messed up info in the Private Directory – BlueValues, OtherBlues, FamilyBlues, FamilyOtherBlues.
I see that Custom Parameter / Family Alignment Zones orders the entry by position from top down. So I’ve matched that in the Metrics panel under Masters (making Italic Angle first, then all zones following). No effect on the built font though with a few bottom zone (Other Blues) appearing in the BlueValue area.
How do I enter both Alignment Zones and Family Alignment Zones info in G3. I’ve had confusion with this each time I master a font and I’d like to get it clear in my head.
. . . and does a zone have to have a depth or can it be zero?
Think I’ve got it sorted now.
Other Values need to be negative and all zones must have a depth in oder to be exported and tell the system if it is a base zone (other value) or not.
At least 1 or −1.
Thanks Rainer. I must remember not to read the spec.
I presume it needs to have a value as this is how Glyphs determines if it is a top zone (BlueValue) or bottom zone (OtherBlue – negative)
For some reason Family Alignment Zones (FamilyBlues and FamilyOtherBlues) are not being exported in the Regular font any more. Is this a problem as they are duplicates.
That part of the font compilation is done by a tool from Adobe. It seems indeed to skip the family zones if they are the same as the normal zones. And As fare as I understand, that should be OK.
Thanks for confirming Georg 