[Dark Goob]

I love Panther. Everything about it is better than Jaguar -- it's faster, more responsive, Exposé is slick and useful, and fast user switching absolutely rules. But Font Book (as well as iPhoto to a lesser extent) sucks and here's why.

Font Book forces you to copy every individual font file into your Users/you/Library/Fonts folder. That's ridiculous. I have thousands of fonts, which I keep organized on my hard drive in many, many folders -- and I like it that way.

I want my font files to stay organized in folders, so that when I need to locate one set of fonts, I can just go into the Finder, click on my folder for Adobe Font Folio (or Bitstream TypeHigh, or whichever) and find my Adobe Caslon folder, within which are the files for that font. Why? Because there are seven files for that font, and they're called "ACasBol", "ACasBolItal", etc. and I would never know that was Adobe Caslon if they weren't in a folder called Adobe Caslon.

Alternatives to Font Book, like Suitcase 10 (which is what I have been using), allow you to add your fonts into the program without copying them to a new location or moving them around. That way, if you ever want to delete your fonts, you can do so. With Font Book, however, I would end up with a folder containing 40,000+ files, all of which are named with indecipherable abbreviations. It would be impossible to find just Adobe Caslon and delete it. Deleting from within Font Book, even though it warns you that it is permanent, does not delete the file from your hard drive, even though it's supposed to (this must be a bug).

The same sort of nonsense is exactly why I have not started using iPhoto, either. I have been shooting digital pictures since 1998, and iPhoto did not come out until just recently. But in order to use it with all of my old photos, I would have to let iPhoto make new copies of all my pictures (gigabytes worth!) and organize them into its ridiculous date-based organization system. I want my pictures to stay organized in the folders that I originally had them in -- that's how I know where to find them. If I go on a 10-day trip, I don't want all the pictures from it being in 10 different folders, one for each day! Ugh.

This is my main frustration with Apple right now, and it's admittedly a minor one. Other than these gripes, iPhoto and Font Book are fine -- but these things prevent people like me from using these pieces of software. I just stick to Graphic Converter to browse my photos, because it doesn't have to copy them all into some other folder somewhere, which on my PowerBook I don't have space for anyway. Nor do I have space to have and additional copy of every single font, all in one completely disorganized folder! Chaos!

Hopefully Apple will address these issues someday. When they do, I will gladly use iPhoto and Font Book...

-=DG=-

[chrissyboy]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
I love Panther. Everything about it is better than Jaguar -- it's faster, more responsive, Exposé is slick and useful, and fast user switching absolutely rules. But Font Book ...sucks...

Hi Dark - gotta agree about FontBook, which is a shame as it's the one feature that really sold me on Panther. Guess I should have waited.

Problem for me - as well as the single folder debacle - is that it just doesn't work. I add a bunch of fonts to a set, often they don't all get added, or none of them get added, with no error message or notification that it hasn't worked. I guess this is something to do with having too many files in one folder? But sometimes the sets do get added correctly, usually just after a restart.

So then I quit FontBook, logout or restart or whatever, and when I go back to FontBook half of them have disappeared - the sets I've made only have the first two or three fonts and the others I've added that I actually need have gone. Even though the actual font file is now in the mess that is my ~/library fonts folder, they don't appear in Illustrator, Indesign etc. So there's no way of using them. What a up!

Hope this gets sorted quickly. This is with 'Erase and Install' on a dual G4. And yes, permissions were repaired...

I've always liked iPhoto though ;-)

C

[bonaccij]

I think what everyone is forgetting is that Font Book was created for the AVERAGE user. I don't think that Apple really had any intention of going into the font management market. They have put this app into the release of Panther as a way for the average Joe to keep his/her fonts handy and know what fonts are installed.

I manage over 2000 users at a major company and we have decided on Font Reserve Server to be our font utility. I think for anyone that has a large font library either FR or Suitcase is the way to go. I also have an extensive library of fonts and have been using Font Book for the past few days. I like having it, as I don't need the enormous amount of fonts I would at work.

I would have to agree about it being a very simplistic application – not allowing you to leave fonts where you want them by copying; not being able to build sets independant of the system etc. etc. – but I think that was the entire goal of Font Book. I think about all of my users that don't deal with more than a handfull of fonts at a time (mostly copywriters) and I think this app is going to save my (fiscal) behind as far as licensing goes. Now only my top designers will need to have copies of a more "in depth" font management utility.

Rethinking all of this, Font Book does, I believe, EXACTLY what Apple planned for it to do. It helps "the rest of us" manage fonts without having to think too hard.

[:haripu:]

Originally posted by bonaccij:
I think what everyone is forgetting is that Font Book was created for the AVERAGE user. I don't think that Apple really had any intention of going into the font management market.

That is what I thought too.

Font Book is really handy if you want to install or de-install a few fonts without having to actually bother with where they are located on the hard disk. Before Font Book this was a nightmare. Five or more font-folders all over the place. Now the average user doesn't need to bother anymore.

I used it to deinstall all fonts that would just mess up my font-menues (and there are a lot of those ). From then on I organized my fonts with suitcase, like before. It works.

[mishap]

Why not throw all your fonts folders in the ~/Library/Fonts directory or copy them over manually to keep the folder organized the way you want. Even in jaguar you could put folders of fonts in the Fonts directory...pre-Jag was a different story.

No, font book is not for power users, but it is a great way to simply browse your installed fonts.

[Soprano]

To me, Font Book is worthless, as it doesn't auto-load missing fonts. Working with several print jobs, this would be a pain in the ass.

I guess I still have to deal with Suitcase

[Kristoff]

You guys are lucky to have such problems.

Where I work, it's "Times New Roman 12 pt"

Anything else and you get yelled at.

[tterp]

i can´t´see how iTunes is any different? Do you hate that one too?

/tterp

[mmintler]

Sorry if this in the wrong place...but I thought it would be helpful for people who really need a power-user solution for fonts in Panther.

I too was looking forward to Font Book- hoping to have a "native" Apple written font solution.

I am a graphic artist and have been struggling with fonts since the release of osX. I had owned a program called font box for OS 9. It worked fine. Around the time X came out they changed the name to Font Agent and released an OsX version. It sucked. It crashed. It was basically useless. So I stopped using Font Agent and purchased another program...Font Reserve. This app has been unpredictable at best. It's auto-activation works very well in some apps and not so well in others. The font database it created was very easily corrupted.

I had almost given up...when I decided to resurrect my serial number for Font Agent and downloaded the most recent version now called Font Agent Pro. What an improvement. IMOP this is now the best font program for os X.

Originally, Font Box was not really a font management tool like Suitcase but a font repair program. It would scan your HD, find your fonts and organize them. It would flag incomplete fonts or corrupted fonts-creating a clean , trouble free collection.

Font Agent PRO also checks and optimizes your font collection as well as manage them.

I also think it's better that Apple not eliminate another 3rd party opportunity.

[nickm]

I want my pictures to stay organized in the folders that I originally had them in -- that's how I know where to find them. If I go on a 10-day trip, I don't want all the pictures from it being in 10 different folders, one for each day! Ugh.

Not to derail this thread, but the point of iPhoto and iTunes is that you aren't supposed to use the finder to get at your photos. If you want to do something with them you should do it from within the app itself.

[malvolio]

Originally posted by mmintler:
I had almost given up...when I decided to resurrect my serial number for Font Agent and downloaded the most recent version now called Font Agent Pro. What an improvement. IMOP this is now the best font program for os X.

Font Agent PRO also checks and optimizes your font collection as well as manage them.

Another vote for FontAgent Pro. I used to use Suitcase, but FA is doing a much better job.
I took one look at Font Book after installing Panther, and immediately realized that it was useless for actually managing fonts.

[Toyin]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
The same sort of nonsense is exactly why I have not started using iPhoto, either. I have been shooting digital pictures since 1998, and iPhoto did not come out until just recently. But in order to use it with all of my old photos, I would have to let iPhoto make new copies of all my pictures (gigabytes worth!) and organize them into its ridiculous date-based organization system. I want my pictures to stay organized in the folders that I originally had them in -- that's how I know where to find them. If I go on a 10-day trip, I don't want all the pictures from it being in 10 different folders, one for each day! Ugh.



-=DG=-

To further derail this discussion. If you drag a bunch of folders into iPhoto, from the finder, they will appear as individual film rolls named after the original folders. Further more rolls in iPhoto are organized by import sessions. So if you go on a 10 day trip and import all the pictures at once, they will be placed in one film roll which you can rename.

When iPhoto and iTunes 1st came out, I did the same thing that you did, because I wanted to be able to get to the files easily in the finder and back up files more easily. Now I never look for music or photos in the finder because I never need to. Everything I need to do can be done from within the application. For the rare time I may want to see a music file I can always select show file in the finder. For photos if I need to edit a picture in more detail, I'll often export it to the desktop and use that copy to play with using Photoshop. Same if I want to email a picture. I never need the location of the original.

I haven't used fontbook yet but I suspect it may take the same leap of faith in the beginning (making sure that you have adequate back-ups of course)

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
Font Book forces you to copy every individual font file into your Users/you/Library/Fonts folder. That's ridiculous. I have thousands of fonts, which I keep organized on my hard drive in many, many folders -- and I like it that way.

I want my font files to stay organized in folders, so that when I need to locate one set of fonts, I can just go into the Finder, click on my folder for Adobe Font Folio (or Bitstream TypeHigh, or whichever) and find my Adobe Caslon folder, within which are the files for that font. Why? Because there are seven files for that font, and they're called "ACasBol", "ACasBolItal", etc. and I would never know that was Adobe Caslon if they weren't in a folder called Adobe Caslon.

Alternatives to Font Book, like Suitcase 10 (which is what I have been using), allow you to add your fonts into the program without copying them to a new location or moving them around. That way, if you ever want to delete your fonts, you can do so. With Font Book, however, I would end up with a folder containing 40,000+ files, all of which are named with indecipherable abbreviations. It would be impossible to find just Adobe Caslon and delete it. Deleting from within Font Book, even though it warns you that it is permanent, does not delete the file from your hard drive, even though it's supposed to (this must be a bug).

The same sort of nonsense is exactly why I have not started using iPhoto, either. I have been shooting digital pictures since 1998, and iPhoto did not come out until just recently. But in order to use it with all of my old photos, I would have to let iPhoto make new copies of all my pictures (gigabytes worth!) and organize them into its ridiculous date-based organization system. I want my pictures to stay organized in the folders that I originally had them in -- that's how I know where to find them. If I go on a 10-day trip, I don't want all the pictures from it being in 10 different folders, one for each day! Ugh.

Hopefully Apple will address these issues someday. When they do, I will gladly use iPhoto and Font Book...

-=DG=-

I agree that Font Book is not as powerful as Suitcase or the other font management apps. But, correct me if I'm wrong here, in the Font Book preferences, there is an option to "Always copy font files when installing". If you uncheck this, it shouldn't copy your fonts over when you install them. It's the same way with iTunes. If you don't allow iTunes to organize your music and copy the files over, you can organize your music how you want to. iPhoto, on the other hand, isn't like this unfortunately. I suppose this is because the majority of your photos will be imported from a camera. But I still think it should act like iTunes and allow you to organize them and cuztomize how iPhoto imports them, to match your organization.

I don't have nearly as many fonts to manage as you, but I have a fair amount. And I really don't need auto activation. So I'm going to give Font Book a try. I think that it has potential. Remember, this is 1.0 afterall.

[freeandunmuzzled]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
[B]I correct me if I'm wrong here, in the Font Book preferences, there is an option to "Always copy font files when installing". If you uncheck this, it shouldn't copy your fonts over when you install them. /B]

actually I think you'll find that that means always COPY the fonts rather than MOVE them. so if you check it a copy of the font(s) will be placed in the fonts folder rather than moving the original font.

I am always curious when people complain about font management in OS X as to whether there gripes are at all based on lingering perceptions of installed fonts using up memory and slowing down the system like they did in 9.

what exatcly would be wrong with throwing your 10,000 fonts in /Library/Fonts (or ~/Library/Fonts)? you could even make aliases to the actual font folders within /Fonts and distribute them 'all over your hard drive' if you liked.

note that subfolders work in Fonts folders now.

[pooka]

Originally posted by freeandunmuzzled:
what exatcly would be wrong with throwing your 10,000 fonts in /Library/Fonts (or ~/Library/Fonts)? you could even make aliases to the actual font folders within /Fonts and distribute them 'all over your hard drive' if you liked.

No ATR replacement. Imagine Freehand MX with it's asstastic font management and the endless scrolling that would be necessary to reach Trade Gothic. Wait, thats necessary now.

That and some apps like to go through and count every freakin font you have during launch.

Edit: I just installed Font Agent Pro demo. Looks promising. Imported a few folders to test it out and it seems much more responsive than suitcase. Hasn't up and died while clicking on a random interface object so it's got that going for it.

[Dark Goob]

Originally posted by bonaccij:
I think what everyone is forgetting is that Font Book was created for the AVERAGE user. I don't think that Apple really had any intention of going into the font management market. They have put this app into the release of Panther as a way for the average Joe to keep his/her fonts handy and know what fonts are installed.

I would have to agree about it being a very simplistic application – not allowing you to leave fonts where you want them by copying; not being able to build sets independant of the system etc. etc. – but I think that was the entire goal of Font Book. I think about all of my users that don't deal with more than a handfull of fonts at a time (mostly copywriters) and I think this app is going to save my (fiscal) behind as far as licensing goes. Now only my top designers will need to have copies of a more "in depth" font management utility.

Rethinking all of this, Font Book does, I believe, EXACTLY what Apple planned for it to do. It helps "the rest of us" manage fonts without having to think too hard.

It is true that Font Book should not act as a replacement for more advanced utilities, both for the benefit of third-party developers and also because most people don't need some of the advanced featuers of things like Suitcase.

However, this does not excuse several things about Font Book that are inexcusable, such as the fact that as one previous poster noted, it just plain doesn't work right and is bug-ridden. Aside from that, one should be able to add a folder of fonts to it, and have the entire folder copied over with its folder name preserved, for easy deletion later (since Font Book does not allow you to delete fonts from within it, unless this is just a bug). However, even if you place a folder of fonts into your /Users/you/Libarary/Fonts/ folder, and then import them into Font Book, it moves them out of the folder (or makes new copies of them) in the base directory. That's just plain dumb, and negates the whole point of hierarchical organization in Finder to begin with.

I guess the average person doesn't care, but I've always respected Apple for making techology that was both easy to use AND powerful, rather than being easy to use at the sacrifice of being powerful. It is possible to satisfy both, easily, as in the case of iTunes, which does not require you to copy everything into some other directory, and allows you to deactivate its "reorganizing" features.

-=DG=-

[Dark Goob]

Originally posted by mishap:
Why not throw all your fonts folders in the ~/Library/Fonts directory or copy them over manually to keep the folder organized the way you want. Even in jaguar you could put folders of fonts in the Fonts directory...pre-Jag was a different story.

No, font book is not for power users, but it is a great way to simply browse your installed fonts.

I could do that, but then when I open Font Book, none of the hierarchy is preserved, and all the fonts appear in a singular heinous all-encompassing list.

As I have said above, my whole complaint would be solved if, when you imported fonts into Font Book, instead of copying the individual files one by one into the /Fonts folder, making them into one big list there, instead it preserved the folders they were in, to begin with. That's what iTunes does with MP3's -- when you open your iTunes folder, they're organized by Artist and Album in folders. This is very useful and is how it should be with fonts: organized by font vendor and typeface (or however the user wants to organize them).

I'm not a graphic designer, BTW. Just someone who loves fonts, and likes to have a lot of them. There are more like me out there, who do not own Suitcase, and desperately need some kind of basic organization tool like Font Book that would actually function. It's nice to see Apple trying, but please Apple, make it better :-)

-=DG=-

[freeandunmuzzled]

Originally posted by pooka:
No ATR replacement. Imagine Freehand MX with it's asstastic font management and the endless scrolling that would be necessary to reach Trade Gothic. Wait, thats necessary now.

That and some apps like to go through and count every freakin font you have during launch.

true. so its third-party apps that are misbehaving. if they implemented Apple's font panel things would be better.

[Dark Goob]

Originally posted by Toyin:
To further derail this discussion. If you drag a bunch of folders into iPhoto, from the finder, they will appear as individual film rolls named after the original folders. Further more rolls in iPhoto are organized by import sessions. So if you go on a 10 day trip and import all the pictures at once, they will be placed in one film roll which you can rename.

That's true. However, once they are in iPhoto, you cannot then "show original in Finder" if you want to. If you open a picture in Photoshop and then make a new version and "save as" into that folder, it will not appear in iPhoto unless you drag it into the iPhoto window. GraphicConverter on the other hand automatically scans a folder when you browse it, so if there are new edited versions of a picture there, you see them, and they get added to your slide shows.

I hate the idea that I'm now supposed to "only deal with my photos in iPhoto", as if the actual files themselves or where they were on my hard drive has suddenly become irrelevant. I like how it organizes pictures in the application itself, but because it doesn't organize them on the hard drive that way, later if I browse the files in the Finder or in another program like Photoshop, they are all located in a mess of folders organized by month and day. Wasn't there a "view by date" anyway? Why do it with the folder names? Retarded. javascript:smilie('') Now my pictures from the 10-day vacation are in 10 different folders, since I imported them from the camera with iPhoto. And the folders are not named anything having to do with my vacation. And if I edit them in Photoshop and save new versions of them it doesn't show up in iPhoto. Ugh.

One solution to this would be to depart from the hierarchical file system altogether and just use a more modular database-like structure, but anyway, thats another rant.

When iPhoto and iTunes 1st came out, I did the same thing that you did, because I wanted to be able to get to the files easily in the finder and back up files more easily. Now I never look for music or photos in the finder because I never need to. Everything I need to do can be done from within the application. For the rare time I may want to see a music file I can always select show file in the finder. For photos if I need to edit a picture in more detail, I'll often export it to the desktop and use that copy to play with using Photoshop. Same if I want to email a picture. I never need the location of the original.

Just because YOU don't need the location of the original doesn't mean that for many people, that's a nice thing to be able to find out. Especially if you, say, want to delete a file, or something stupid like that. If you import a folder by dragging and dropping it into iPhoto, even if you delete the file in iPhoto's trash, it doesn't delete the actual file. Are most users going to realize this?

Anyway not to sound trolly. I really think the iApps are great in a lot of ways and the reason I'm complaining is that I hope someone at Apple hears it and thinks about making a change -- because I would love to start using these programs.

-=DG=-

[Dark Goob]

I am always curious when people complain about font management in OS X as to whether there gripes are at all based on lingering perceptions of installed fonts using up memory and slowing down the system like they did in 9.

No, that's not it.

what exatcly would be wrong with throwing your 10,000 fonts in /Library/Fonts (or ~/Library/Fonts)? you could even make aliases to the actual font folders within /Fonts and distribute them 'all over your hard drive' if you liked.

You've got to be kidding, right?

Have you ever tried opening a Finder window with 10,000 items, even in the faster Finder? Or have you ever tried to locate all the font files associated with one family, not knowing what the abbreviation for it is?

-=DG=-

[freeandunmuzzled]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
NHave you ever tried opening a Finder window with 10,000 items, even in the faster Finder? Or have you ever tried to locate all the font files associated with one family, not knowing what the abbreviation for it is?

-=DG=-

wouldn't I be using font book not the finder?

anyway,no I haven't tried that.I don't have 10,000 items to try it with.

I do know that if I drag a folder of fonts onto the leftmost panel of font book, it installs them and creates a collection with the same name as the folder.

[poocat]

this is my number one hate for iphoto, and to me it makes it completely un-usable.

why oh why won't it let me organize MY OWN photos the way I want to? what is this whole insisted upon "steving" of our hds? i mean, i love itunes, i really do, but having to uncheck that option is kinda sketch. i'd rather it were off default. and iphoto doesn't even give you a choice? it just leaves your hard disc a MESS of illegible datecodes? that's wack. that's so wack in fact that it's GONE. no more iphoto for the masses on my comp. which sucks, because i like the app. but the fact that i can't find a photo when i want to (with the FINDER) means that it's a total waste of space.

i want to see the pics? PREVIEW.
a mess though.

sad to hear fontbook follows the disaster.

pc.

[Toyin]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
That's true. However, once they are in iPhoto, you cannot then "show original in Finder" if you want to. If you open a picture in Photoshop and then make a new version and "save as" into that folder, it will not appear in iPhoto unless you drag it into the iPhoto window. GraphicConverter on the other hand automatically scans a folder when you browse it, so if there are new edited versions of a picture there, you see them, and they get added to your slide shows.

OK for giggles I decided to see how hard it would be to find a picture. It took me a few seconds. the picture was imported on 10/22/2003 and surprisingly it was in iPhotoLibrary>2003>10>22. It was a matter of arrowing down to see which picture it was. That was easy so I picked a roll with 100s of pictures in it. I chose export picture to find out what the original file name was, then did a search in iPhotoLibrary and came up with the file in about 2 seconds.

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
I hate the idea that I'm now supposed to "only deal with my photos in iPhoto", as if the actual files themselves or where they were on my hard drive has suddenly become irrelevant. I like how it organizes pictures in the application itself, but because it doesn't organize them on the hard drive that way, later if I browse the files in the Finder or in another program like Photoshop, they are all located in a mess of folders organized by month and day. Wasn't there a "view by date" anyway? Why do it with the folder names? Retarded. javascript:smilie('') Now my pictures from the 10-day vacation are in 10 different folders, since I imported them from the camera with iPhoto. And the folders are not named anything having to do with my vacation. And if I edit them in Photoshop and save new versions of them it doesn't show up in iPhoto. Ugh.

You have 2 options when editing photos. You can export it and then edit with Photoshop or you can change your preferences within iPhoto and have the file edited with your application of choice. Your 10 day vacation will be in one folder if you imported the pictures on the same day. The folders are by import sessions, not by the date stamp of your camera.

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
One solution to this would be to depart from the hierarchical file system altogether and just use a more modular database-like structure, but anyway, thats another rant.

This would be the best option.

Originally posted by Dark Goob:

Just because YOU don't need the location of the original doesn't mean that for many people, that's a nice thing to be able to find out. Especially if you, say, want to delete a file, or something stupid like that. If you import a folder by dragging and dropping it into iPhoto, even if you delete the file in iPhoto's trash, it doesn't delete the actual file. Are most users going to realize this?

After you empty the trash in iPhoto the pictures are deleted from your hard drive. I just tested it with the above mentioned file.

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
Anyway not to sound trolly. I really think the iApps are great in a lot of ways and the reason I'm complaining is that I hope someone at Apple hears it and thinks about making a change -- because I would love to start using these programs.

The iApps are great, but there are pretty simple ways to work around the problems that you've posed (at least in iPhoto). Like I said, I was firmly in your camp with the original iPhoto, but finally let go with iPhoto2 and its better backup abilities.

[Mediaman_12]

I made the mistake of attempting to import all my fonts/font collections in to FontBook (drag over one collection, so it created a set then deactivate it). This was a an enormous error. It started well but then it started to get slower and slower, eventually the entire OS froze up and I did force reset. On the restart no aapps would launch and the entire thing was masively laggy. I then noticed that if FontBook isn't running then ALL your font's that are in it are active. So I had over 1000 fonts Active, and they had all been moved to the ~/Lib/fonts in no sort of order.
Luckly I had a backup of both the original ~/Lib/fonts and my font colections folders. I was hoping FontBook would be a relese for the slow pain that is Suitcase. Why didn't Adobe want to make ATM Delux for OSX.

[Tom C]

I'm an "average" user (in the sense that I don't have a zillion fonts and I'm not a design professional) and I like Font Book so far. It's a little buggy (I got a crash when I tried installing about 30 fonts at once), but it fills my needs. I have only about 100 fonts and my needs are simple: I don't want my rarely used fonts cluttering up the font menu unless I need them. Font Book makes it easy to turn the rarely used fonts on and off. It certainly beats creating a Fonts (unused) folder in /Library and moving the fonts by hand when I want to turn them on and off.

[turk.o]

just wanted to chiome in with my 2¢ and say that after using font book for an hour, i had numerous crashes, system freezes, completely f*ed font folder, and vowed to never open it again. i just restored my backup and pretended like it never happened. apple should be ashamed to realease this prgram to the public. it is a nightmare, and not what i'd expect from apple.

t.o

[barbarian]

Sure apple meant fontbook for the casual user as opposed to the pro user, but wouldn't it be nice if apple provided a pro-level tool that was both simple and powerful.

I hate fontbook mainly because it seems like with a little bit of work it could have been great. In it's current state it is really only acceptable for the basic user... even someone who does a minor amount of font tinkering will run into it's limitations very quickly.

The list of sins:

1. Does not allow for user organization of fonts. All iapps should allow for auto-organization or user-organization (the way itunes does). Moving my meticulously organized fonts is a major sin.

We should be able to add folders to the 'all fonts area".

When user folders are in this area we should be able to select them individually or in groups and see the results in the font pane.

2. No foundry info. No sort by foundry.

3. No sort by 'date added'.

4. No WYSIWYG view of font names.

5. No contextual menus for quickly categorizing fonts.

6. No way to quickly see if a font has already been categorized somewhere.

7. It is almost unusable slow on my ibook G4.

8. Search should include the option to search by foundry, font type, family name or display name.

-----------------------
The best OS X font organization program I've used so far is Font Reserve... but it is incompatible with Panther, was horribly slow when starting or quitting, and is now defunct.

Suitcase X1 also has Panther problems but the assumption is that it will be updated. Right now this is the best bet, but the interface is still awkward and it has a habit of quitting unexpectedly and losing hours of organization work.

My perfect world is somewhere between ATM/ATR & Font Reserve. My guess is that Apple won't beef up font book to make it a pro level app, but we can hope can't we?

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
I made the mistake of attempting to import all my fonts/font collections in to FontBook (drag over one collection, so it created a set then deactivate it). This was a an enormous error. It started well but then it started to get slower and slower, eventually the entire OS froze up and I did force reset. On the restart no aapps would launch and the entire thing was masively laggy. I then noticed that if FontBook isn't running then ALL your font's that are in it are active. So I had over 1000 fonts Active, and they had all been moved to the ~/Lib/fonts in no sort of order.
Luckly I had a backup of both the original ~/Lib/fonts and my font colections folders. I was hoping FontBook would be a relese for the slow pain that is Suitcase. Why didn't Adobe want to make ATM Delux for OSX.

I did the same

I moved all of the fonts out of ~/Library/Fonts/ but now it seems I'm missing soms base installed fonts. (I think the base is about 125 fonts, now I'm a 90). Could someone post a list of the standard fonts that reside in your home library font directory ?

Back to Suitcase

[himself]

I have to agree that Font Book really is not ready. It barely applies to even the most novice font user...

That being said, Font Agent Pro is the best font utility for OS X. Too bad it was just sucked up by Extensis. I have been using Suitcase X1 for a few months now, and it does an OK job, but Font Agent Pro is the top of the mountain right now. But, since I don't expect any updates, I'll stick with X1.

[jtice]

Originally posted by himself:
I have to agree that Font Book really is not ready. It barely applies to even the most novice font user...

That being said, Font Agent Pro is the best font utility for OS X. Too bad it was just sucked up by Extensis. I have been using Suitcase X1 for a few months now, and it does an OK job, but Font Agent Pro is the top of the mountain right now. But, since I don't expect any updates, I'll stick with X1.

Font Book is obviously a big disappointment to graphics people. It was one of my primary reasons for upgrading. I actually expected it to be an industrial strength feature since it was being enthusiastically promoted.

Suitcase is just barely adequate. I've been a Suitcase user since the days of Font DA Mover but have not upgraded to X1. Extensis is like a troll under the bridge–charging $50 at every opportunity for compatibility upgrades and doing as little as possible to strengthen the product. The aquisition of Font Agent Pro was a blatent move to eliminate it's only serious competitor from the marketplace.

That, and the fact that we no longer have ATM Deluxe should be a clear signal to Apple that it's time they brought serious font management capabilities to the operating system. Considering their relationship with the graphics industry and the Mac's overall position as the "ease of use" operating system it just makes sense. From my perspective, font management is a glaring hole in an otherwise brilliant OS.

JT

[malvolio]

I thought it was Font Reserve, not FontAgent Pro, that had been acquired by Extensis (the Suitcase folks). Or have they eliminated another competitor as well?

[barbarian]

It was fontreserve that was acquired.... read about it here:

http://www.diamondsoft.com/

[lookmark]

Originally posted by chrissyboy:
Gotta agree about FontBook, which is a shame as it's the one feature that really sold me on Panther. Guess I should have waited.

Problem for me - as well as the single folder debacle - is that it just doesn't work. I add a bunch of fonts to a set, often they don't all get added, or none of them get added, with no error message or notification that it hasn't worked.

Same here. On two machines, I can't get Font Book to work right. It doesn't seem there's any similar place where both fail, either. Just at some almost random some point it stops working.

I've tried adding groups of fonts in smaller and smaller groups, and same problem. Deleting all Font Book preferences and plists, and tried again. No luck. Quite disappointing.

[rahlgren]

I don't like iPhoto's way of filing either, so I've started yanking them out and putting them into date-named folders that make sense to me, and then changing all the picture creation dates (with A Better Finder Attributes) to match the folder names (no 2 folders will have the same date.) It's not important to me if the dates are off by a few days, as long as I get the month and year right.

Then I will know that all pictures in "2003 11 02 Mary" will be in myname>Pictures>iPhoto Library>2003>11>02, instead of scattered among several folders.

Then from here on out, before I import any pictures to iPhoto, I will change the dates to one date per folder. This way I get the best of both worlds: the ease and beauty of iPhoto and keeping my individual "rolls" in individual folders.

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by freeandunmuzzled:
what exatcly would be wrong with throwing your 10,000 fonts in /Library/Fonts (or ~/Library/Fonts)?

Nothing, if you don't mind 5-10 minutes of the spinning beach ball every time you log in.

[dialo]

Originally posted by mishap:
Why not throw all your fonts folders in the ~/Library/Fonts directory or copy them over manually to keep the folder organized the way you want. Even in jaguar you could put folders of fonts in the Fonts directory...pre-Jag was a different story.

Some of my font libraries have to be stored on external drives. I don't use them enough to keep them on my powerbook, which has little space left on the drive thanks to video and audio work.