Filter List Manager (FLM) is a free, open source plugin for the Glyphs font editor that automates the creation of glyph filter lists with simple newline-delimited glyph definition text files. Definition files can be stored locally on your computer or remotely (e.g., in a Github repository) and used with the plugin.
- Download the FLM plugin from the repository releases and install in the Glyphs application
- Export your previously defined filter list definitions to FLM formatted definition files with the instructions below
- Create newline-delimited local filter list definition files in
~/GlyphsFiltersusing the base filename of the definition file to name your filter list - (Optional) Push one or more new filter list definition files to a remote server (or locate definition files that someone else has pushed to a remote server) and create a
~/GlyphsFilters/remote/defs.txtsettings file to define the URL to the remote filter list definition files - Select the Edit > Update Filter Lists menu item in the Glyphs editor
- Close and restart Glyphs to view your new filter lists!
- Please Read Before Use (Really, please read it!)
- Plugin Installation, Upgrades, Removal
- How to Make Filter List Definition Files
- Filter List Definition File Storage Locations
- Plugin Usage
- Tools for Filter List Management
- Contributing
- License
The first run of the plugin replaces all existing Glyphs font editor filter lists that you have previously defined with the filter lists that are defined using the definition files specified for the FLM plugin. A handy Python 3 script is available to export your existing filter list definitions to the FLM definition file format and should be used before you run a FLM update. Download the exportfilters.py script located in the tools directory of this repository and run the script with a Python 3 interpreter using the following command from any directory on your system:
python3 exportfilters.py
Confirm that all of your existing filters are defined in new filter list definition files that are exported to the directory ~/GlyphsFilters, then proceed with use of the plugin to define additional filter lists and manage your previous filter lists.
For those who don't read documentation, there is a backup of the original CustomFilter.plist file that was present on FLM install. This file contains all of the filter list definitions that were present before you ran the FLM plugin. You can find this backup on the path ~/GlyphsFilters/backup/CustomFilter.plist.original. Rename the file to CustomFilter.plist and move it to the path ~/Library/Application Support/Glyphs/CustomFilter.plist to restore your original filter list state, then use the documentation above to export the filters for use with this plugin.
- Download the latest release archive from the FLM repository Releases in either a *.zip or *.tar.gz compressed format
- Unpack the downloaded archive file
- Open the unpacked directory
- Double-click the plugin
FilterListManager.glyphsPluginin the top level of the directory to open it with the Glyphs application - Acknowledge that you want to install FLM in the Glyphs Install Plugin dialog that appears
The Preferences > Addons > Plugins window in Glyphs will indicate when an update is available for the FLM plugin. To upgrade your installed plugin, locate the latest release of the plugin and follow the same instructions that you followed for the initial installation above.
Changes that were included in releases since your last upgrade are indicated in the repository CHANGELOG.md.
Uninstall the FLM plugin by deleting the directory on the path ~/Library/Application Support/Glyphs/Plugins/FilterListManager.glyphsPlugin. Next, delete the ~/GlyphsFilters directory with the command:
$ rm -rf ~/GlyphsFilters
All filter lists that were previously defined with FLM will remain in your editor. If you wish to remove any previously defined filter lists, use the builtin functionality for filter list management in the Glyphs GUI. Removal of the FLM plugin does not limit use of previously defined filter lists. You can remove all components of the plugin and continue to use filter lists normally in the absence of the plugin and all settings files. There is no need to modify the builtin functionality for filter list management in Glyphs following an uninstall of the FLM plugin.
The filter list definition file is a newline-delimited text file that lists your desired glyph names. See DEFINITIONS.md for detailed documentation of how you format the file and define both glyph list names and the glyph names that are included in the filter lists.
The filter list definition files that you use to define new filter lists can be stored on your local macOS system or on a remote server that is accessible through HTTP GET requests. One or more local and remote filter list definition files can be used simultaneously to define all desired Glyphs font editor filter lists with the FLM plugin.
Place the filter list definition files that you make in the top level of the directory ~/GlyphsFilters on your macOS system. If this directory does not exist after you install the FLM plugin, open your terminal and enter the following command:
$ mkdir ~/GlyphsFilters
The GlyphsFilters directory can be opened by selecting the Edit > Open GlyphsFilters Directory menu item in the Glyphs application after you install the FLM plugin.
Note: FLM does not search sub-directories of ~/GlyphsFilters for local definition files so you can create one or more sub-directories to store definition files that are not in active use. Sub-directory names logs, backup, and remote are reserved for the plugin. Please do not overwrite these directory paths.
You can upload filter list definition files to any publicly accessible web server or use files that have been shared by others with this approach. You must create one additional settings file in the ~/GlyphsFilters directory to define one or more URL where the FLM plugin can locate the remotely stored definition files.
Save a text file on the path ~/GlyphsFilters/remote/defs.txt with a newline-delimited list of URL that point to one or more filter list definition files. Each URL represents a new filter list definition for the Glyphs application. You may use the comment line indicators # and // in the ~/GlyphsFilters/remote/defs.txt file. Empty lines are also permitted (and ignored).
An example of a valid ~/GlyphsFilters/remote/defs.txt file that points to two filter list definition files located on a remote Github server follows:
// Remote filter list definitions
# Mac Roman filter list definitions
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/source-foundry/charset-filters/master/Mac-Roman.txt
# MES-1 filter list definitions
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/source-foundry/charset-filters/master/MES-1.txt
Please note in the above example that you must use the URL for the "Raw" text file if you push your definition files to Github. This is formatted as https://raw.githubusercontent.com/[account]/[project name]/[branch]/[filename]. When you enter this URL in your browser you should see only the text file with no Github website UI around it. If you see the Github UI in the browser window, the URL that you are viewing points to HTML text and this will lead to errors during the FLM filter list update attempt.
Following installation, you will find three new menu items under the Glyphs application Edit menu:
- Update Filter Lists
- Restore Default Filter Lists
- Open GlyphsFilters Directory
Select the Update Filter Lists menu item to perform an update of your Glyphs filter list definitions using all local and remote filter list definition files that you define in your ~/GlyphsFilters directory.
Select the Restore Default Filter Lists menu item to restore a default set of filter lists that include the ASCII, Mac Roman, and Windows 1252 filters.
Select the Open GlyphsFilters Directory menu item to open the ~/GlyphsFilters directory in the macOS Finder. The ~/GlyphsFilters directory is the location where you store local filter list definition files and remote definition files. This directory also includes application logs that can be used to explore what happened during processing or evaluate errors. Lastly, and importantly, the directory includes backups of the CustomFilters.plist definition file at the time of plugin install and just prior to the last FLM plugin filter list update run so that you can recover any lost data.
The tools directory in the FLM source repository contains Python 3 scripts that assist with the creation and management of filter list definition files. Please see the TOOLS.md documentation for details.
Contributions to the FLM plugin project are warmly welcomed. Fork the repository and submit a Github pull request to suggest modifications to the source. Source must be contributed under the Apache License 2.0. File new issue reports for problems that you identify during use or for plugin enhancement suggestions.