Pencil tool cursor icon changes to Select tool icon when moving the mouse

Glyphs
1

When I select the Pencil tool, its cursor icon is correct (pencil), and if I start to draw immediately, it’s fine. But when I just move the mouse, the cursor icon changes back to Select tool icon and stay like that until I will select the Pencil tool in the next time. Is it just me or is it a bug?

Version 3.4.1 (3436)
macOS Sequoia 15.6.1

2

Screenshot 2025-10-27 at 5.00.10 PM
Screenshot 2025-10-27 at 5.00.10 PM448×177 5.43 KB

3

that is a but. I’ll look into it.

4

Thanks. Also, I have a side question. In a plugin, I need to check if Pencil tool is active. Currently it’s identified like this:

if Glyphs.font.tool == "GSToolGroup":

Is GSToolGroup a correct name for Pencil tool? It feels a little generic comparing to the other tools names.

5

The tool group is handling the stacking of tools in one button. I fixed the accessor to return the actual tool.

1 Like
6

Thanks for the update (3500). Here are the reports.

Pencil cursor — works but with initial confusion

  • When I select the Pencil or Draw tool, manually from the panel, and start moving the mouse, the cursor displays correctly.
  • However, initially, when I just select any tool (different of Select tool) by pressing the key like P for Draw or B for Pencil, the cursor temporary blink with the selected tool for a moment, but then it display the default arrow cursor again, until I start moving the mouse. It is noticeable only when I select the tool by pressing the key assigned to it.

Tool identification — completely fails now

Identical error from Console and from any Reporter plugin:

print(Glyphs.font.tool)

  File "GlyphsApp/GlyphsApp/__init__.py", line 4981, in <lambda>
  File "GlyphsApp/GlyphsApp/__init__.py", line 4961, in __GSFont_tool__
UnboundLocalError: cannot access local variable 'toolClassName' where it is not associated with a value
7

Thanks for the report. Fixed it.

8

Thanks, the tool identification works fine now. I guess that to support both new and old name of Pencil tool in different versions of Glyphs, I need to identify it like this:

active_tool = Glyphs.font.tool
if active_tool in ('PenTool', 'GSToolGroup'):
	# Pencil tool is active