It is amazing that Glyphs supports reading and writing UFO files, as I often want to change something in a UFO, and Glyphs offers a fast and fluid way to do so.
However, I occasionally have glyphs set to “skip export” in a UFO, and I need these to be preserved if I edit the UFO in Glyphs.
The good news: Glyphs will successfully write to this lib key if I mark a glyph as non-exporting in a UFO which is opened in Glyphs, then saved (as the same UFO).
The bad news: if I close the UFO and reopen it in Glyphs, that lib key is deleted. Saving the file (without any other change) removes the lib key from the UFO.
I’ve tested this multiple times, in different UFOs, and the issue seems pretty consistent.
I’m finding this by working with Git (here’s a view of before/after in VS Code):
I’m on Glyphs Version 3.3.1 (3342).
As a related topic: in designspace-based projects, FontMake (or more specfically, ufo2ft) requires skipped glyphs to be listed in the designspace file, and it ignores the key in individual UFOs. For me, Glyphs will open designspaces, but won’t save edits to them. I’m not sure if this is as intended, but if/when Glyphs does save changes to designspace files, it would be great for the skip exports keys to be written both to the designspace lib and to the lib of each UFO.
Thanks for taking a look!