A roadmap for hTools4

20 September 2021   tools hTools4

RoboFont 4 was released recently after several months of hard work by Frederik, Tal, and Roberto. It is a major upgrade which includes a completely new drawing backend (Merz) and a new API for observing events (Subscriber). The result is better performance, and a more powerful API for building interactive tools.

This post lays out the plans for upgrading hTools to RoboFont 4.

hTools3 entering maintenance mode

There may be a couple of hTools3 releases until the end of the year, but these will probably include only bug fixes and minor changes. Use the new issue tracker to send bug reports, feature requests, etc.

hTools4: a new version of hTools for RF4

Work on hTools4 will begin in October, to take advantage of the RoboHackathon 2021. The priority will be to upgrade hTools3 to the new Merz and Subscriber APIs in RoboFont 4.

The target release date for hTools4 is 1st January 2022.

hTools4 will not be backwards-compatible with RoboFont 3, and it will probably cost more than hTools3.

License hTools3 now and get hTools4 for free

Users who license hTools3 until 31st September 2021 will get a free license for hTools4.

Thanks to all current and future users who contribute to development by buying a license.

Looking forward to start working on hTools4!