Hot Keys
As noted in HotKeys assignment you can nominate the hotkeys which you prefer for all items in any menu of FontForge. Some default hotkeys are shipped with FontForge so that you do not have to assign any keys yourself unless you want to make changes. The defaults are shown below:
Hot Keys are now configurable by editing a hotkeys file.
Different Keyboards
The above descriptions assume you are using a keyboard for an IBM pc or compatible. But different keyboard vendors label their keys differently and different versions of X may map them differently.
I am aware of the following significant differences:
- On Mac OS/X the Option key is equivalent to the Alt modifier key
- On Suse PPC linux, the Command key is equivalent to the Alt modifier key (And the Option key acts as a compose key in the same way it does on the Mac when not using X)
- On Suns the meta (diamond) key is equivalent to the Alt modifier key.
FontForge will attempt to guess what keyboard you are using and produce menus with hot-key indicators that match the host machine. If you are displaying on a different machine from the one you are running on the menu names may be wrong. You can fix this up with the keyboard resource, or the -keyboard command line argument.
Tool modifiers in the Outline Glyph Window
| Tool | Modifier | Result |
|---|---|---|
| pointer | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert or italic angle/45° |
| Alt | Select control points before normal points | |
| Shift-Alt | Constrain control point motion to original angle from point | |
| freehand | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert/45° |
| add curve | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert/45° from last point |
| add tangent | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert/45° from last point |
| knife | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert/45° |
| scale | Shift | Constrain either to scale along x or y axis or scale both axes the same |
| rotate | Shift | Constrain rotation to a multiple of 45° |
| 3d rotate | ||
| rect/elipse | Shift | square/circle |
| magnify | Shift | When dragging a magnification area, make it square |
| Alt | minify | |
| scroll | Shift | Constrain scroll either in single direction or by same amount in both directions |
| add corner | Shift | Constrain horizontal/vert/45° from last point |
| pen | Shift | Constrain points h/v/45 from last point Constrain control points h/v/45 from point |
| ruler | Shift | Constrain measurement to one direction |
| Alt | Give current position more accurately | |
| flip | ||
| skew | ||
| perspective | ||
| polygon/star | Shift | Constrains so that one of the vertices is horizontal/vertical/45° |
Modifer keys for arrow keys in the Outline Glyph Window
| Control - or - CapsLock |
Makes the arrow keys scroll |
| Alt | Makes the arrow keys move by ten times as much as they would otherwise |