Add an "Open File" button

[MrPropre]

Hello,

Currently, opening an existing file relies on drag and drop.

For me, drag and drop is not a very common or intuitive way to open a file. In most creative applications I use (for example Adobe apps), the usual workflow is File > Open or clicking an Open File button and selecting a file through the macOS/Windows native file picker.

It would be nice to have a simple "Open File" (or simply "Open") button just next to the existing "New Font..." button, in addition to drag and drop, so users can open existing files using a more familiar workflow.

Thanks!

[justvanrossum]

This is currently not implemented, because an "Open File" dialog should allow to pick folders (.fontra anywhere, .ufo and .glyphpackage on non-mac platforms) as well as regular files. The UI toolkit Fontra Pak uses (PyQt) does not currently offer such a diolog out of the box, and creating one is hard and will have fundamental downsides. So while I agree only supporting drag-and-drop is a bit of a compromise, I'm not seeing a good way to improve this at the moment.

See also fontra/fontra#2594

(Also relates to #89)

[MrPropre]

Thanks for the explanation.

What about having separate actions instead of a single "Open..." dialog?

For example, using a "File" button with a dropdown menu:

• File > Open File... for file-based formats (.designspace, .glyphs, .ttf, etc.)
• File > Open Package... (or Open Folder...) for directory-based formats (.ufo, .fontra, .glyphspackage)

That would avoid the need for a custom "file + folder" picker while still providing a more traditional menu-based workflow for users who don't like drag-and-drop. It seems like it could be implemented using Qt's existing file and folder dialogs.

[JeremieHornus]

A way around this could be to use Qt's own (non-native) QFileDialog so that a package-style folder gets accepted as if it were a file. One unified dialog, all formats, identical behavior on all three platforms:

openFileTypes = [
    ("Fontra", "fontra"), ("Designspace", "designspace"),
    ("Unified Font Object", "ufo"), ("RoboCJK", "rcjk"),
    ("Glyphs", "glyphs"), ("Glyphs Package", "glyphspackage"),
    ("TrueType", "ttf"), ("OpenType", "otf"),
    ("WOFF", "woff"), ("WOFF2", "woff2"), ("TTX", "ttx"),
]
# the formats that are directories rather than plain files
packageExtensions = {"fontra", "ufo", "rcjk", "glyphspackage"}


class OpenFontDialog(QFileDialog):
    """File dialog that also lets package-style font folders
    (.ufo, .fontra, .rcjk, .glyphspackage) be picked like files."""

    def __init__(self, parent, directory):
        super().__init__(parent, "Open Font...", directory)
        self.setOption(QFileDialog.Option.DontUseNativeDialog)  # so accept() works on folders
        self.setFileMode(QFileDialog.FileMode.ExistingFile)
        allExt = " ".join(f"*.{ext}" for _, ext in openFileTypes)
        self.setNameFilters(
            [f"All fonts ({allExt})"]
            + [f"{name} (*.{ext})" for name, ext in openFileTypes]
        )

    def accept(self):
        selected = self.selectedFiles()
        if selected:
            path = pathlib.Path(selected[0])
            if path.is_dir() and path.suffix[1:].lower() in packageExtensions:
                self.done(QDialog.DialogCode.Accepted)  # accept the package, don't enter it
                return
        super().accept()

The button handler then mirrors the existing newFont() and reuses openFile() / the activeFolder setting verbatim:

def openFont(self):
    dialog = OpenFontDialog(self, self.activeFolder)
    if dialog.exec():
        for path in dialog.selectedFiles():
            applicationSettings.setValue("activeFolder", os.path.dirname(path))
            openFile(path, self.port)

Plus an "&Open..." QPushButton next to "New Font...", wired to self.openFont (needs QHBoxLayout and QDialog added to the existing PyQt6.QtWidgets import).

It would be a non-native dialog but could look acceptable, and on all platforms…