New TraceViewer and a few updates

Here’s a summary of changes in the last two updates. The version at the time of this writing is 1.0.5

Major updates in TraceViewer

In previous versions, TraceViewer only allowed a single instance. Even when multiple TraceViewer windows are open, they will all show the same fonts and the same string for which shaping is traced.

This has now changed. After opening a new instance of TraceViewer, by selecting ‘New TraceViewer Window’ from the File->New menu, you can set a different font. This will be very helpful when comparing the shaping process of the same string with different versions of the font, or even different fonts.

You can also set the same font in all instances and compare the shaping process with different strings.

Two TraceViewer windows
Two TraceViewer windows tracing the shaping of different strings in the same font.

Filter names in Fonts tab

The Fonts tab is useful when comparing a newer version of the font to an older one. However, The number of glyphs in a font can sometimes be too many when you just want to compare changes made to a few glyphs. Hibizcus now has a search filter at the top of the grid, which you can use to limit the glyphs with names that begin with the given filter.

Cluster data updates

Cluster data was updated for Tamil and Sinhala. The missing consonants were added to Tamil and a new category, called Grantha conjuncts, was added to include க்ஷ and ஶ்ரீ. The missing Al-Lakuna was added to Sinhala.

Cluster data was also added for Khmer. Thanks to Sovichet Tep

Regex search in Words tab

The Words tab has several options to choose words from the list. All of them collect words using regular expressions. However, some users wanted to type in their own expressions. This is now possible from version 1.0.5.

WordsTabRegexSearch
Words tab showing results of a custom regex search

Leave a Reply