FontBook in Panther...
I searched in that big Panther thread and only saw a screenshot or two. I have some specific questions that I've not seen here (if the thread exists, lock this one and point me to that one).
This FontBook thing...does is work with all programs, Apple and others? Is it, like the current Font Panel, only for Cocoa stuff? I think that's how I understand it.
I guess what I'm really wanting to know is this: if this new FontBook thing in Panther a true, valid replacement for my beloved ATM Deluxe?
Can I:
- Keep all my fonts in a folder anywhere on my hard drive (root level, in my case)
- Have folders divided by type of font (serif, sans serif, display, script, dingbat)
- Have those sets shown that way in FontBook and easily search, activate, etc. at will?
- Opening up a document containing a currently inactive font will automatically activate said font (auto launch, I guess is the term)
- Works in all apps? Apple stuff, of course (TextEdit), but, more importantly, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop?
- Does what Adobe Type Reunion does and groups the families together in the menu, using sub-menus (you see "Palatino" in the main font menu and a little arrow/submenu beside it containing Roman, Italic, Bold, etc., as opposed to everything flung everywhere alphabetically: bPalatino, bRockwell, bTime, etc.)
...and basically every other little thing that ATM Deluxe did so well?
Is this Panther FontBook going to mean I don't have to keep using Suitcase?
Tell me all about this and get as detailed as you want!
Thanks for any and all info, screenshots, detailed examples, answers, etc.! This is, honestly, my biggest crutch right now in OS X: fonts and font management. I'm so bummed that the near-perfect ATM Deluxe never made it to X and I've been hobbling along for a year-and-a-half now, putzing around with Suitcase or a couple of shareware solutions.
This FontBook thing...does is work with all programs, Apple and others? Is it, like the current Font Panel, only for Cocoa stuff? I think that's how I understand it.
I guess what I'm really wanting to know is this: if this new FontBook thing in Panther a true, valid replacement for my beloved ATM Deluxe?
Can I:
- Keep all my fonts in a folder anywhere on my hard drive (root level, in my case)
- Have folders divided by type of font (serif, sans serif, display, script, dingbat)
- Have those sets shown that way in FontBook and easily search, activate, etc. at will?
- Opening up a document containing a currently inactive font will automatically activate said font (auto launch, I guess is the term)
- Works in all apps? Apple stuff, of course (TextEdit), but, more importantly, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop?
- Does what Adobe Type Reunion does and groups the families together in the menu, using sub-menus (you see "Palatino" in the main font menu and a little arrow/submenu beside it containing Roman, Italic, Bold, etc., as opposed to everything flung everywhere alphabetically: bPalatino, bRockwell, bTime, etc.)
...and basically every other little thing that ATM Deluxe did so well?
Is this Panther FontBook going to mean I don't have to keep using Suitcase?
Tell me all about this and get as detailed as you want!
Thanks for any and all info, screenshots, detailed examples, answers, etc.! This is, honestly, my biggest crutch right now in OS X: fonts and font management. I'm so bummed that the near-perfect ATM Deluxe never made it to X and I've been hobbling along for a year-and-a-half now, putzing around with Suitcase or a couple of shareware solutions.
Comments
Originally posted by pscates
This FontBook thing...does is work with all programs, Apple and others? Is it, like the current Font Panel, only for Cocoa stuff? I think that's how I understand it.
FontBook is another application, like how the Address Book has its own application -- independent of other apps. It is not the Cocoa font panel. The Cocoa font panel is to Font Book as the Address panel in Mail is to the Address Book -- that is, the font panel inside a Cocoa app is an inline reflection of Font Book's settings.
I guess what I'm really wanting to know is this: if this new FontBook thing in Panther a true, valid replacement for my beloved ATM Deluxe?
I honestly couldn't say because I don't feel I'm familiar enough with ATM.
- Keep all my fonts in a folder anywhere on my hard drive (root level, in my case)
Font Book is set up to automatically install fonts in their proper places (Network, computer Library, user Home Library) when you double-click the fonts. It also automatically shows those locations plus your Classic Fonts folder in the left-hand pane. I don't know if it automatically finds other folders or if you can add them to the list of source folders.
- Have folders divided by type of font (serif, sans serif, display, script, dingbat)
It comes with the default collections we have now in Jaguar I think. You can make any number of arbitrary collections like this. They're not so much folders in that they don't actually create folders in your HD. The idea is that you don't have to go through folders in the Finder, like how iTunes and iPhoto are set up.
- Have those sets shown that way in FontBook and easily search, activate, etc. at will?
There's the live search field in Font Book, just like the ones in iTunes, the Panther Finder, Mail, etc. There's an Activate/Deactivate button at the bottom of each column in Font Book that you can use on each font style in that column that you select.
- Opening up a document containing a currently inactive font will automatically activate said font (auto launch, I guess is the term)
I think so, but I don't know.
- Works in all apps? Apple stuff, of course (TextEdit), but, more importantly, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop?
I know that the activated/deactivated fonts setup will be reflected in any app Carbon or Cocoa, but I don't know if the collections will be available to Carbon apps with their own font UI.
- Does what Adobe Type Reunion does and groups the families together in the menu, using sub-menus (you see "Palatino" in the main font menu and a little arrow/submenu beside it containing Roman, Italic, Bold, etc., as opposed to everything flung everywhere alphabetically: bPalatino, bRockwell, bTime, etc.)
Yes, there should be a screenshot of that somewhere. link, link The second column of the Font Book shows you the font family with a disclosure triangle that reveals al the styles of that family underneath and indented, an outline view basically.
- Font Book does *not* yet support auto-activation. . i.e., You need to activate a font on in Font Book before it'll be available in the app.
and
- Font Book doesn't organize font menus in other apps -- there's still nothing like Type Reunion for OS X.
So it's not perfect, but it still looks pretty, pretty nice.
I'm surprised no one's yet come up with the solution for the latter.
And also: Panther ain't out yet, so there's no telling how tight they'll get this before it hits the streets? I hope so.
Yeah, in a production environment involving different designers on different Macs and working different shifts, the same project is likely to get passed around and opened by more than just one person.
When you open that file, any fonts used in it should be triggered to activate (assuming everyone in the department has the same fonts installed, which in my case we do).
I hope this gets looked into. I don't want to buy and learn yet another third-party solution.
Originally posted by pscates
There's probably some cool OS X shareware thing out there that does this. I'll keep searching.
I haven't tried it yet, but FontSight from Stone seems to handle this, at least for Cocoa applications.
-Heady
Font Book does *not* yet support auto-activation
Font Book seems to support auto-activation in InDesign 2.0, but not in other Adobe programs. Go figure.
This problem also happens to be the only reason for me continuing to use OS9 for all my work. Even if Font Book does gain some of the features of ATM Deluxe I doubt it will ever compare.
Its stunning that nobody seems to realise just what a problem this is for the creative side of the Apple market.
Originally posted by cowerd
Font Book seems to support auto-activation in InDesign 2.0, but not in other Adobe programs. Go figure.
That's interesting. Any other programs?
Originally posted by naderby
Maybe the likes of Illustrator needs a plug-in to enable the Font Book auto-activation.
This problem also happens to be the only reason for me continuing to use OS9 for all my work. Even if Font Book does gain some of the features of ATM Deluxe I doubt it will ever compare.
Its stunning that nobody seems to realise just what a problem this is for the creative side of the Apple market.
EXACTLY! What genius at Adobe decided it wasn't worth the effort?
Only everyone in the entire design world, it seems, uses/used ATM Deluxe. And it was close to perfect! Worked well, stayed out of the way, launched the fonts you needed to work with and print a particular document, allowed you to easily manage your type library, etc.
I'll never understand that one. Make some niche, piss-ant apps like LiveMotion OS X native, but neglect the ONE thing that every Adobe customers uses/needs? Regardless if you're a print designer, web person, into video/animation, an illustrator, etc. you work with fonts and type. Hands down, no exceptions. And most of us in those fields tend to have A LOT of fonts too...certainly too many to go throwing them into the System Folder and having font menus 400 feet long and apps like Illustrator and InDesign taking 11 minutes to launch.
And yeah...the "cocoa" stuff doesn't really do me any good, unfortunately.
This is the ONE area/aspect of OS X that I've enjoyed/gotten a handle on LESS than OS 9: font management. Everything else rocks and I have no complaints.
But there's a huge, gaping hole here, guys...
Originally posted by pscates
EXACTLY! What genius at Adobe decided it wasn't worth the effort?
I'm not sure why Adobe decided to drop ATM Deluxe, other than perhaps they felt that it was more of a pain to support than the revenues it brought in. But I suspect Type Reunion was dropped for a strategic reason; Adobe applications all have their own built-in font organization. So Type Reunion really was only benefitting Quark. That's my crackpot conspiracy theory. Either that or they couldn't be bothered trying to get to work right in OS X.
You sure are right that there's a few big gaping holes for improvements in font management for OS X. As more and more designers jump on the ship, I'm hoping some enterprising developers will fix that.
I'd just make one, dammit! And I'd sell it for $9.95 (but I'd give it to all my AI homeys for free).
Seriously though...for a small company or an enterprising, on-the-ball individual who really knows their stuff...quite an opportunity.
Here's hoping that by the time Panther hits the streets, they (Apple) will listen to some of their inhouse designers and other people in the field and work some of these features in.
Would seem REALLY crazy not to, considering who makes up the bulk of their customer base.
Apple should just buy ATM Deluxe from Adobe anyway, steal/adapt the good stuff, improve it where it needs it, wrap it in a luscious Aqua goodness and call THAT Font Book!
We'd ALL be happy!
But you know, except for the auto-activation, I think FontBook looks much *better* than ATM in a number of ways. Fast live searching, easily resizable font display (including fit-to-resize), installation right from the font info window in the Finder...
Yum.
If Apple doesn't come out with plug-ins and Xtensions for FontBook auto-activation soon, I bet someone else will.
Originally posted by pscates
Here's hoping that by the time Panther hits the streets, they (Apple) will listen to some of their inhouse designers <snip>
I also hope they improve FootBook by the time Panther ships, but I wouldn't count on feedback from Apple's inhouse designers; you don't need much from a font manager when the only font you'll ever manage is Myriad
-Heady
I didn't think about that.
Steven
..
Font Management continues to be one of the big stumbling block in OS X. Hearing about Font Book in the upcoming Panther is wonderful, but unless it fully addresses the needs of creative professionals, like myself, it won't go far enough to fill the gaps left from OS 9.
ATM Deluxe is not coming to OS X, so it's features need to be addressed for the millions of creative professionals who lived and died by that program to manage hundreds of fonts on OS X.
Auto-activation (being able to activate fonts from within Font Book manually is great, but it does not replace auto activation).
Works in all Apps.. (can you use Font Book from any application? Will it work the same no matter if you are using a Classic, Cocoa, or Carbon app?)
Font Menu (A lot of font menus are a mess, first there's no way to see each font in their own native style, and second, families of fonts can be scattered across the menu or have their ugly Post Script names--A GaramBld--ick!)
-There should be a way to see fonts in their scripts. (including custom sizes)
-There should be a way to display font families together with a sub menu for styles.
I hope Font Book also solves issues with Network Font Servers.
Lastly, I hope Font Book has some sort of extensible style or plug in architecture where 3rd parties can add extra features, like integration of purchasing fonts into Font Book (ie. the former DiamondSoft's Font Reserve). You could preview, purchase, download and activate a new font right within Font Book, and get back to work.
Thank you.
Seriously though, font supremacy was one of the things that separated the MacOS from Windows and is one of the reasons the platform became the standard for the creative market. It's as important to publishers/designers as the creative market is to Apple.
As we stand in OSX, that advantage has all but disappeared. Yer, there's Suitcase and Font Reserve but if you've been using ATM for as many years as I have you won't get along with them at all, they do not compare, they are not seamless and they seem to actually get in the way.
pscates, I agree, there is a real opportunity here for a software team to get in there now and produce the standard font management software for years to come. Too bad a large company such as Extensis doesn't see this. Well, maybe they do, but they are sure making a terrible job trying.
I?m not a programmer, but I can?t see that it would be any more difficult to build than in OS9. Yer there?s 4 standard locations for fonts, but I?ve had ATM running fonts from many many folders and disks at any one time, even removable disks like CD?s.
Adobe can?t even figure out that if it can get the publishing industry over to OSX with a little help from ATM, it would bring in significant revenues from all the new OSX compatible software that would need to be purchased. Fools.
Originally posted by naderby
Adobe can?t even figure out that if it can get the publishing industry over to OSX with a little help from ATM, it would bring in significant revenues from all the new OSX compatible software that would need to be purchased. Fools.
As long as Adobe thinks it's main competitors are Apple (ie. Final Cut Pro) and Quark, then we'll see 2 things.
Run like a little girly man from Apple (ie. Premier).
Stumble around and trip over it's own boot laces and still make a more elegant program than XPress (not perfect but certainly InDesign 2.0 is nicer than XPress in many respects and version 5.0 will be out before Quark gets to version 7.0)
... or no wait.. how about when Quark XPress 6.0 will actually ship to it's customers... check out this post on VersionTracker.. lol
PFFFFFFFFTTT! __Richiyaado__
Version: 6.0, 7/14/2003 02:03PM PST
Apparently, Quark won't be happy until they have driven every single Quark user to give up on them and spring for the cost of InDesign. I ordered my "upgrade" to version 6 after an email promotion more than a month ago and still haven't received it. I tried calling Quark today to find out in which month, year, decade or century I can expect the upgrade to arrive. But after more than half an hour of waiting and listening to the recorded voice yada, the question became in which month, year, decade or century would a real human being actually take my call?apparently never.
Basically, as long as Adobe feels it has no competition worth mentioning, or in the case of Apple worth trying to compete against, then it will continue to plod and stumble along. It's a wonder that can make such a wonderful program like Photoshop and then can't seem to get anything else quite right...
I love Illustrator, but it's feature-bloat is not matched with speed.
I would love for Adobe to make ATM for OS X if for nothing more than competition, but somehow I think Apple can do it better, if only it takes this whole mess seriously enough.. One only wonders why the heck they waited 2 whole years?? And even then it doesn't look like this Font Book solution, wonderful as it is, is going to be enough.
Originally posted by Steven R Wilson
One only wonders why the heck they waited 2 whole years?? And even then it doesn't look like this Font Book solution, wonderful as it is, is going to be enough.
Exactly.
My heart leapt for joy when I first heard of Font Book. Think Apple knows that going only half the way can help our situation?
Having said that, Font Book is still in beta. What if InDesign 3, Illustrator 11 and Photoshop 8 all auto-activated with Font Book when they shipped? Oh please, please, please...
Having said that, Font Book is still in beta. What if InDesign 3, Illustrator 11 and Photoshop 8 all auto-activated with Font Book when they shipped? Oh please, please, please...
Here's where people's criticism of Apple "undercutting" or "stealing" the market from 3rd party developers falls short (at least especially as far as system level utilities are concerned). Font Book by being *part* of the OS, instead of a 3rd Party add-on, however incomplete or flawed gets instant attention from other developers, who will then likely want to make sure that it works with their programs.
So Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, hell maybe someday even Quark but I'm not holding my breath there.. will likely work hard to make sure their flagship products make good use of Font Book in each of their programs. What makes this OS level integration of font management even more appealing is that if each of those products starts to work with Font Book (and other programs add support for Address Book and the built in dictionary, etc.)... there becomes a certain level of consistancy over how everything intereacts, and you don't have to learn a different way of managing fonts in Illustrator, from Photoshop, to Quark XPress, to DreamWeaver to MS Word..
One simple system level interface supported by Apple.
Font Book may not go far enough, but it's a great first step.
Originally posted by naterby
Seriously though, font supremacy was one of the things that separated the MacOS from Windows and is one of the reasons the platform became the standard for the creative market. It's as important to publishers/designers as the creative market is to Apple.
You know I think you're on to something here, which is I think is really a larger part of why a lot of creative professionals have not migrated to OS X.
It's NOT how "slow" OS X is compared to OS 9 apps, even tho this did not help especially on earlier hardware, and with a lot of early shoddy OS X ports of older apps.. I think that developers are getting better at developing for the platform, and I think the newer hardware runs OS X and design apps fast enough.
I think besides lack of Quark, I really think Font management was a big issue for a lot of people. Apple, while giving you a lot more flexibility to how to manage fonts on OS X (network, global and user folders, as well as Classic OS).. it added a lot of new layers of complexity.
Not to address this issue up front or at least very quickly was a mistake in my opinion.
Also printer and scanner support should have been more agressively pursued by Apple, and now they have Quark onboard (or at least in theory), they need to really address the larger issue of hardware support for older expensive printers and high end print shop equiptment, so that shops with older Macs can use their 300 thousand plus dollar equiptment without having to order new stuff so it will "run in OS X."
I think Apple is making great strides with PDF, and it's graphics engine with Quartz Extreme (think Expose) is awesome..
Also, for what it's worth, I think Apple's toning down of Aqua is going to make a lot of designers happy as well.
But without some way to manage 4,000+ fonts or more that many people have in their shops, all those other features are "eye candy" and likely many will stick to OS 9.