⌘V does the same thing as ⌘D in a Font tab?

Glyphs
1

Hello!

I like the flexibility of the Paste Special ⌥⌘V in a Font window and I noticed that I only use the Paste Special and not the regular Paste.

But then the purpose of the Edit → Paste ⌘V is unclear in a Font tab, given that it does exactly the same thing as Glyph → Duplicate Glyph ⌘D. Currently, it doesn’t matter which glyph(s) is selected (or none is selected) when pasting occurs, pasting works the same in all cases – making a duplicate of the copied glyph(s) with a suffix of .001 (.002 etc).

Feature request for the Paste ⌘V in the Font tab:

  • No glyph is selected or glyph(s) copied from is selected → functionality is as it is now → make a duplicate(s) with a suffix.
  • Other glyph(s) selected (different from those copied from) → this needs some discussion as to exactly what should be pasted, but would it be functional to paste → All data from copied glyphs except the glyph name, unicode, category (like Paste Special does with the All data option).

That is, it would be more functional if (in the Font window) the Paste made more practical sense and was dependent on whether the same glyphs were selected or other.

2

I don’t think this is a good idea, as there is almost always at least one glyph selected in Font View. ⌘D is different to ⌘V in that it uses the current selection instead of the current clipboard.

3

Thanks @FlorianPircher, I see the difference with duplicate in this case. I mean only the case when copying from some glyph(s) selected and pasting to another glyph(s) selected, when the donor and recipient are different. That is, if I selected another glyph and do Paste, I probably selected it for a reason and I want to paste something into it.

I will give a clearer example:

Store 1 – The name of the glyph from which it is copied.
Store 2 – The name of the duplicate glyph that is being created.
Home – The name of the glyph to paste into.
Products – The glyph data to be copied.

I took the Products from Store 1 and am taking them Home. But they suddenly moved to Store 2. This is a pleasant surprise for Store 2, but not for my wife at Home. I’ll have to tell my wife that I drank the money :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

4

That is the purpose of Paste Special. The regular ⌘V Paste does not modify the selected glyphs. For example, if you have multiple fonts open in Glyphs, you can copy glyphs from one font and paste them into the other font. Users expect the pasted glyphs to be added to the other fonts, not replace the selected font (unless that is what they want, which is why Paste Special exists).

5

Thanks for the clarification, it makes more sense now. So that’s the purpose of ⌘V Paste. That is, it doesn’t matter if any glyphs are selected or not, Paste works the same. This makes more sense when working with several different fonts.

I understand that you don’t want to confuse the user as to exactly what and when Paste does in a Font tab. Just wanted to share that I was still confused by its logic when working within a single font.