[Sjakelien]

Now that I've been playing around with OSX a bit (I'm generally very happy and excited), some REAL questions arise (I'm confident that all bugs will be fixed):
What about fonts & font management in OS X?
Fonts seem to reside in MacintoshHD=>System=>Library=>Fonts.
Through the finder, you cannot move fonts in or out of this folder. So, how do I add or remove fonts?
Also: fonts have a .dfont extension. What is this? (The finder doesn't give a preview, and classifies a .dfont as a 'document')
Can I use OS9-style postscript fonts? I mean, suppose, I'm a major publishing house, and I've invested a lot in fonts, can I still use them? (Or suppose I'm a graphic designer and I stole all the fonts off of Hotline, do I have to wait for ages before I can steal .dfonts through the same channel)?
Is Adobe coming out with an ATM-like application?
Quite relevant questions I would say.
Answers, anyone?

[Marshall]

The Apple Type Solution (ATS) architecture built into the system supports TrueType, Type 1, OpenType, and bitmap fonts, right out of the box.

There are actually 3 locations that fonts can be stored in. System->Library->Fonts is only for fonts supplied in Mac OS X, so you know that everything in this folder is on everyone else's system as well. Fonts that you install on your computer that you want to be available to every user are put in Library->Fonts. If there's a font that you want to install, but it's only for your personal use, you can put it in the Library->Fonts folder in your own home folder.

Here's the idea behind this: in Mac OS 9, the System folder held both the Mac OS 9 system files and the files that other applications (or you yourself) installed. This made it rather confusing at times as to what would break your system and what wouldn't if you removed it.

In Mac OS X, the System folder (and the Library folder inside it) generally holds things related to the Mac OS X system itself. Things that you or other applications have added, such as fonts, preferences, and so forth, are put in folders inside the main Library folder instead, making it clear what is part of the system and what has been added to it. The main Library folder is used by every user of the computer, and each user has their own Library folder as well. So your personal IE preferences would be stored in your personal Library, whereas things like internet plug-ins would be stored in the shared Library.

It sounds complex at first, but once you get the distinction between system-specific, computer-specific, and user-specific, it makes a lot of sense.

Mac OS X also has things like font genres, so you can group together fonts based on styles and so forth. It's pretty nice.


[This message has been edited by Marshall (edited 09-29-2000).]