Smart Filter by Unicode value instead of name

Glyphs
1

Somewhat related to this issue Bulk rename glyph names from unicode to human readable

Is it possible to filter via Unicode values? Right now I’m finding that creating a list with glyph names may not include that some glyphs if they are not named exactly that and there doesn’t seem to be a consistent glyph naming scheme (since you can use anything really?).

2

You can convert from uniXXXX names to nice names for use in a filter with a system service, too. http://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/system-services/

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But it can’t change the actual glyph names in Glyphs App, only text?

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what do you have as glyphs names and what do you like to change to?

If you have uniXXXX names and like to convert them in nice names, you can use the “Font > update Glyph Info”. Make sure that you disable “Don’t use nice names” in Glyph info > Other settings.

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What are you trying to achieve with the filter? You know you can filter by script, e.g. all Greek letters, right?

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Ah well, I have a font with a set of characters but I can’t tell if the font has, for example: Adobe Latin 5 set complete. I’ve created List Filters to see if all the glyphs are covered but it won’t return a positive on characters that don’t have the same glyph name as in the list, but is actually there for example:

‘Scommaccent’ already exists but since the filter contains ‘uni0218’ instead, it will show as a missing character when in fact it exists just under a different name — it gets harder when I’m working in scripts that I don’t know well.

What I’ve done for now is: I made a filter list for Adobe Latin 5 using only uniXXXX names. Then the glyph names were converted to uniXXXX names via a FontForge script. I can now accurately check to see if the font has filled the list.

I’m sure there’s a better way to this though.

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You can convert the names from uniXXXX to design names with the included system services: http://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/system-services

And you can even convert unicode characters directly to design names…

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That reminds me: I need to make time to post my filter lists for the Adobe character set lists matched to Glyphs naming. And clean up the scripts, someday.

It would be nice to be able to create a list filter using Unicode uniXXXX names while allowing the nice Glyphs names to be displayed when looking at the filter for missing glyphs. When the Glyphs nice names change, I need to change my filters; if the Unicode value was stored, the list would remain correct (and use the new name). Of course, you’d want to allow specifying names without a corresponding uniXXXX, also.

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But doesn'tt his only convert a list of words, i.e. in a text file, not the actual name of each glyph inside Glyphs App? Unless there's something I'm missing.

I agree with composerjk

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That is what you want to do with the list filter, which is nothing but 'a list of words'. Try it: copy and paste the names out of the list filter into your favourite text editor.

For converting glyph names, as mentioned before, you use Font > Update glyph info.

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Thanks mekkablue, that worked

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Reading this post still does not solve the issue. It would be good to be able to make a filter list from a list of unicode values, not unicode name e.g. uni0038, but value e.g. 0038, so you can view the glyphs and their names based on the unicode value. In font production we often will have a list of unicodes that we want to make a filter from without changing the glyph names in the font. Can a smart filter be added that takes a list of unicodes?

5 Likes
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Same here! Sometimes I need to go through several sources which use different nice names. In these situation a unicode value filter would be very handy.

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You can use Smart Filters to filter by Unicode value: