I am just trying Glyphs rightnow and have to use the older version, because my OS is not compatible with V2. I am just thinking if there are any benefits in combining Glyphs with Robofont? I mean it seems TrueType Hinting is missing in Glyphs, is this available in Robofont?
I also have an older version of FontLab, but FL is a complete nightmare for me regarding the interface and it's many small bugs.
Any recommendations???
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As Rob already mentioned, get the trial versions, watch some videos, read the docs. That should help you make a decision. Thanks to the guys behind the UFO format it is even possible to exchange files between the editors (with occasional drawbacks and the risk of losing some data though). So sometimes it might be worth considering to switch editors because there might be a feature/extension in the other one that helps you in your process.
Concerning TT-Hinting: There is a extension for Robofont currently in development which will make it possible to hint a TrueType file almost like in Fontlab. Glyphs 2 does have a hinting tool, but is still lacks a trustworthy preview/waterfall of the hinted and rasterized shapes, something very vital when doing hinting.
The forthcoming hinting extension to Robofont is great, but it has to use Freetype for preview, so then you have to learn where the projected differences will be between FreeType and Windows. (depending on which Win you are hinting for...)
What I’m saying is you need to test in the browsers. And that can be done on a Mac with virtual machines.
At least in Latin. It’s a lot harder to test hundreds of unencoded glyphs.
I'm pretty sure the hints required for windows ct are not effected by browser choice, and that one set of hints is all you got for all browsers. But, post comparison, how do you change your hinting to effect clear type's spacing and rendering of diagonals?
As David rightfully mentions: you can only have one set of hints for all browsers. And FontLab’s GDI ClearType preview is the bottom line for me when it comes to x-axis anti-aliasing and non-subpixel positioning.
As Paul rightly points out, as long as one set of hints works, there is not much one can do about all the browsers. We could also consider as part of that issue, that we cannot do much about users platforms or sizes, except to change fonts or font formats.
And for me that goes without saying that we can't do much about their device resolution, much less their sub-pixel status in the world, at any given orientation.
That may be a bit off topic, apologies, but the original poster seems to have left his post.
It’s not why I don’t use VTT—I have a PC for testing fonts on Windows. For me the problem is just not wanting to add another tool and another file to my workflow.
Well, encode them, then, in the Private Use Area. See https://github.com/googlefonts/fontbakery/issues/388