# Get Info

In the Outline View the Get Info command can generate one of four different dialogs depending on what is selected. If a single thing is selected, and that thing is a point then the point info dialog is brought up, if it is a reference then the reference dialog is brought up, if it is a background image then the image dialog is brought up. If it is an anchor point then the anchor point dialog is brought up.

## Point Info

This shows information about the current point. The Base position is where the point itself is.

The Next CP shows both the location of the next control point, and the offset to that point from the base (and whether this setting is the default for that point, if this point is the last on an open contour then the [] Default button will be grey), underneath the offsets it shows the same information in a different format -- as a distance from the point itself, and the angle to it.

The Prev CP does the same for the previous control point.

You may change any of these and the change is reflected in the outline view. Your changes are constrained by the point type (for instance with tangent points, you may not change the angle fields as these are fixed).

You may also change whether a point is a curve, corner or tangent point (Caution: Changing from a corner point to a curve point and back to a corner point is NOT a no op. It may change the control points) You may move on to the next or previous point on the path, or the next/previous point of the current contour. If you cancel then all changes to all points are canceled.

The colors of the labels reflect the colors of the items they refer to. The point itself will be drawn in red, the previous control point will be drawn in magenta and the next control point will be drawn in dull cyan.

### Hint Mask

If you want to control what hints are active at a given point (and at all subsequent points until an new hintmask is given) you can use the hint mask pane. This provides you with a list of all hints in the current glyph, you should select the ones which you want active.

As you select hints, the glyph view will darken those hints so you can see what you've selected.

Points with circles drawn around them have hintmasks.

According to Adobe's documentation you should never have two hints which conflict active at the same time. FontForge will warn you if you do this. Unfortunately there are fonts (even fonts from Adobe) which do not follow this rule, so I have made this a warning rather than an error.

Remember to hold the control key down when making disjoint selections.

Sadly the direction in which hintmasks apply is backwards from what you would expect (the hintmask applies to this point an all previous points on the contour, rather than all subsequent ones).

#### Active Hints

This looks just like the hint mask, except you cannot change anything it in. It shows you what hints are currently selected at this point. If a point has a hint mask then the two will be identical.

## Anchor Points Info

This dialog shows the selected anchor point with the anchor class, location, type and (for ligatures) the ligature index. You may change any of these attributes (as long as your changes are reasonable). You may create new points or delete the current one. As with normal points above you may step through all the anchor points in your glyph.

Anchor points may also be created with the Point->Add Anchor command.

## Reference Info

This dialog shows the name of the selected reference, its encoding in the font and its postscript transformation matrix. You may alter the transformation matrix if you desire.

The transformation matrix maps points in the glyph being refered to into their location in the current glyph:
`xcurrent = TM[1,1]*xref + TM[2,1]*yref + TM[3,1]
ycurrent = TM[1,2]*yref + TM[2,2]*yref + TM[3,2]`

The [Show] button will open a glyph outline view showing the glyph being referred to.

## Image Info

This dialog gives the offset to the lower left corner of the image and the scale factors applied to the image. Currently you may not alter anything here, it is purely informational.

See Also:

- The font info dialog
- The glyph info dialog

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