ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'fontforge'

Observed behaviour

When I try to install FontBakery, I get the following error:

Collecting fontbakery (from -r requirements.txt (line 8))
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/a6/19/07b7166d7ff8f95a7beb41ae533a23c283a539f771b0baad0f9983adea04/fontbakery-0.0.13.tar.gz
    ERROR: Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/private/var/folders/sr/fzxs628x5gbgjtwscngjdcqh0000gn/T/pip-install-gt4owhmn/fontbakery/setup.py", line 25, in <module>
        import fontforge
    ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'fontforge'
    
    During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
    
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
      File "/private/var/folders/sr/fzxs628x5gbgjtwscngjdcqh0000gn/T/pip-install-gt4owhmn/fontbakery/setup.py", line 27, in <module>
        raise Exception(msg)
    Exception: Python module `fontforge` is required. Install it with `apt-get install python-fontforge` or `brew install python; brew install fontforge --HEAD`
    ----------------------------------------
ERROR: Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /private/var/folders/sr/fzxs628x5gbgjtwscngjdcqh0000gn/T/pip-install-gt4owhmn/fontbakery/

So, I ran:

▶ brew install python; brew install fontforge --HEAD
Warning: python 3.7.3 is already installed and up-to-date
To reinstall 3.7.3, run `brew reinstall python`
Warning: fontforge  is already installed
The currently linked version is 20190413
You can use `brew switch fontforge ` to link this version.

Then

▶ brew switch fontforge 20190413
Cleaning /usr/local/Cellar/fontforge/20190413
55 links created for /usr/local/Cellar/fontforge/20190413

But I ended up with the same error as before.

Expected behaviour

I expect FontBakery to install without this error, because I have already install fontforge, as homebrew confirms.

Resources and exact process needed to replicate

Encode Sans at https://github.com/thundernixon/Encode-Sans/tree/4c0afcc9e79bd91238ebb4a834516b93fa128d7b

[laerm0]

https://stackoverflow.com/a/17153977 :

You can get pip to give verbose output using the -v flag … but one isn’t enough. I RTFM-ed the help, which said you can do -v multiple times, up to 3x, for more verbose output.

This is, hands down, one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read.

[chrissimpkins]

I think that this may be due to the fact that the Python fontforge module is coming from a brew install of fontforge command line tools (not from pip3 where it doesn’t exist/is not distributed). Looking at the Homebrew Ruby formula for fontforge, it seems that the Python module that it installs is Py2 only. Your Py3 venv can’t import it. The old FB version doesn’t handle the fontforge import exception and chokes…

I think 😃