Suitcase X1 is out.

hobbes · September 9, 2003 11:41AM

It looks quite a bit better. We'll see.

Some new features:

- QuickType font preview (looks really fast in the animated site graphic)

- "QuickFind", which I hope is a live search feature, along with keywords

- corrupt font detection and repair (at last!)

- duplicate font management, a la ye ATM Deluxe of old

and last but not least...

- a real toolbar (gasp!)

Anyone try it out yet?

rok · September 9, 2003 12:20PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hobbes

Some new features:

- QuickType font preview (looks really fast in the animated site graphic)

an extensis feature. looks very nice.

Quote:

- "QuickFind", which I hope is a live search feature, along with keyword

- corrupt font detection and repair (at last!)

- duplicate font management, a la ye ATM Deluxe of old

all technology acquired from fontreserve.

Quote:

and last but not least...

- a real toolbar (gasp!)

and they apparently fired everyone on their gui team and finally started following some guidelines. took 'em long enough.

so it looks like the buyout of fontreserve actually resulted in a GOOD product (unlike almost every other buyout in the history of buyouts). extensis gets over their hump of having good fast searches, font repair, detection, etc., and font reserve finally gets someone to be able to get their product on windows machines (critical in an editorial/design/production environment, where editors have active control over stories in production).

aquatic · September 9, 2003 3:55PM

What use is this if you have Fontbook on Panther? All I can see is font repair and I don't know what the hell is happening to everyone's fonts but mine have never needed to be "Repaired."

rok · September 9, 2003 5:03PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aquatic

What use is this if you have Fontbook on Panther?

well, off the top of my head, auto-activation for documents, projects or applications. when you're running a hundred different tasks throughout the day, activating fonts on a as-needed basis isn't practical. neither is activating your most commonly used ones to be active all the time.

if you have them open via fontbook, and they are the original fonts. fontreserve and, i guess now, suitcase activate copies. so if your computer crashes, they will not be corrupted. if you are using any fonts from your os 9 days, and you weren't using fontreserve to activate them, and you EVER crashed while fonts were open, i am willing to bet good money at least a few could stand to be repaired.

plus, apparently you never read any of my other threads, because from what i can tell, fontbook does nothing for duplicate fonts (essential when you are working with dozens of client files, and they have all supplied you their own version of helvetica that they got from a friend, or an installer), nor searching based on style (i.e. old style versus slab serif, versus humanist grotesk). but hey, maybe you know all the fonts that fall into those categories, and don't need to have a program comb through a font folio library and find all of the calligraphy fonts, so you can get a comp design redone for a client in 30 minutes because the original selection was too close to their original design agency's copyrighted work.

but i have. and it's font manipulation like that which has saved my ass.

timo · September 9, 2003 5:17PM

Wonder if FR will get an update as well, before they finish combining the two products.

Would be nice to see some auto-activation plug ins for Quark 6.

othello · September 10, 2003 8:37AM

as a suitcase user i looked at the specs for this...

hmmm

its not really offering that much to be honest IMHO.

hobbes · September 10, 2003 9:17AM

Quote:

Originally posted by othello

as a suitcase user i looked at the specs for this...

hmmm

its not really offering that much to be honest IMHO.

Really? If it wasn't for Font Book, it'd look like a no-brain upgrade to me.

Much better UI? Font repair? Duplicate font management?

What more are you looking for from a font management program?

I'll be waiting to see just how well Font Book works, but Suitcase's new capabilities (from Font Reserve, mostly) sure tempt me.

chrisg · September 10, 2003 1:14PM

Quote:

Some new features:

- QuickType font preview (looks really fast in the animated site graphic

How is this a "new Feature" I use it all the time in Suitcase 10.2.2? One feature that I really like is the ability to active from the preview pane, no longer look at the preview, read the name, find the font in the list, click it active it...blah..blah. Just find the one you want and activate it. Very Nice.

pscates · September 10, 2003 2:00PM

*cough*FontAgent Pro...*cough, cough*

(I've always wanted to do that sneaky "cough" hint thing...today was the day!)

defiant · September 10, 2003 2:32PM

*psst*do it like that: FontAgent Pro!*shh*

jamm · September 10, 2003 4:50PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Timo

Would be nice to see some auto-activation plug ins for Quark 6.

It does.

macanoid(tm) · September 12, 2003 10:04AM

As much I like Fontagent Pro, it's just not ready for primetime yet. Although everything about it's interface is totally excellent, and how it handles fonts is how it should be done, it does have two MAJOR flaws:

1: Currently it's unbearibly slow. If you have anything over a 100 fonts, it's virtualy unusable unfortunately. A real shame, but that's how it is.

2: When closing the program, is starts saving it's database file. Again, if you have Fontagen manage a lot of fonts, this can take anywhere between 1 and 4 minutes. Unacceptable I feel.

Insidersoftware have promised a completely new version for this fall which should solve these problems. All I can say is, I really hope so. Suitcase is a really good program, especially this new release. Feature for feature, however, Fontagent Pro is just a lot better, plus it has a cleaner (better?) interface I think.

rok · September 12, 2003 10:18AM

i really like the folks at insider. they were the first to have a mainstream commercial "update tracker," though much of its functionality has been replaced by freeware from macupdate, as well as apple's own software update system preference and a little vigilence on the vendor's website (btw, anyone else feel like versiontracker has fallen apart ever since they and macfixit tried to get together to offer subscription services? i used to swear by both sites, but now...)

anyway, i would like to see fontagent pro give everyone a run for their money. it also seems to be insider's last hope for a profitable software package. otherwise, they may go the way of cassady & greene.

macanoid(tm) · September 12, 2003 1:40PM

I like 'm as well, and I feel Fontagent will give the others a run for their money very shortly!!

I bought Fontagent Pro just after it was released, and like I said - I love the app, it's everything a fontmanager should be and more, except for the speed problem. I'm convinced though they will fixx that, and when they do - bang - I'm back using Fontagent.

Suitcase X1 is out.

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