Is there a special font folder for font devolpment?

[AndreasChlupka]

Hello,

I'm currently developing a font using Glyphs app. I would like to review the font during dev inside Affinity Designer. As this is an iterative process, I have to quit and reopen Designer whenever I make adjustments by rewriting the font file, in order to see the update in Designer. I understand this is a system wide behaviour with fonts on macOS, but it seems like Adobe have implemented a feature to accommodate for this requirement.

Please see this here: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/testing-your-fonts-in-adobe-apps

Is there such a feature in the Affinity product line?

 

Thank you and have a great day.

Andreas

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, Andreas.

I have the Windows version of Affinity Designer, not the Mac version, but I always have to close and reopen the current document if I want it to reflect the latest changes in the font cache. However, I don’t have to quit and relaunch the app itself.

[AndreasChlupka]

Thank you Alfred,

a quick test shows, that on the Mac simply closing and reopening the document does not cause a font cache refresh. 

In any case, I think a File -> Revert option to easily reopen the current document would be very beneficial.

I'd welcome a comment from the dev team.

Thank you

Andreas

[Fixx]

Using a helper app to flush font caches may help some. There are several available (FontNuke (32-bit), Font Finagle), also general maintenance apps can do it (Cocktail, OnyX).

[A_B_C]

Have you tried reloading the fonts through Affinity Designer > Preferences > Miscellaneous > Reset Fonts? Does that work for you?

[AndreasChlupka]

Thank you all for your suggestions, they are much appreciated.

Affinity Designer > Preferences > Miscellaneous > Reset Fonts does not reload the font in question. An application restart is still mandatory for the changes to show.

I'm trying to stay away from tools the flush the global font cache. This has too many implications on other apps I use.

Thanks again.

Andreas
 

[A_B_C]

In the font projects I was involved in, we’ve been testing fonts mainly in Adobe applications during development, and only afterwards we performed some rounds of QA on different systems and in different apps. So … hmm … it’s sad that there doesn’t seem to be a similar way of real-time testing in the Affinity apps. That would certainly be welcome. 🙁

What you can do, though it’s a bit of a hassle:

• Export a new version of your typeface to the Fonts folder
• Go to Finder, rename the font file in the Fonts folder by adding an arbitrary, but new (numerical) string to the file name, and remove all previous versions of your font from the Fonts folder
• Your font should immediately update in your Affinity document

I was under the impression that Reset Fonts would do such a refresh. But it seems you have to apply some pressure.