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Font Book v. Suitcase?
- Thread starter flybynite
- Start date
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Bearer of bad news....
I'm not sure if it something that I'm doing... But I have been using Suitcase for a couple of years now... I begrudgingly switched from ATM when i changed over from 9 to X, so I was elated when I saw font book was added to Panther.
Font Book looks and feels like it should be as simple as anything, but after much testing a fiddling around, it seems the activation/deactivation controls are useless, I've tested it in Illustrator, and regardless of if I have them on or off, they still appear in the font dialogue box. (Which is killing me, as I put alot of fonts on my system....) I hope it is just some compatibility issues that will be addresses asap... but until then, don't hold your breath. I hope for everyones sake it is something I'm overlooking and it works fine!
I'm not sure if it something that I'm doing... But I have been using Suitcase for a couple of years now... I begrudgingly switched from ATM when i changed over from 9 to X, so I was elated when I saw font book was added to Panther.
Font Book looks and feels like it should be as simple as anything, but after much testing a fiddling around, it seems the activation/deactivation controls are useless, I've tested it in Illustrator, and regardless of if I have them on or off, they still appear in the font dialogue box. (Which is killing me, as I put alot of fonts on my system....) I hope it is just some compatibility issues that will be addresses asap... but until then, don't hold your breath. I hope for everyones sake it is something I'm overlooking and it works fine!
Has anyone played around with font book yet?
From what I can tell, it MOVES your fonts from the selected location, and dumps them all together in either the main font library folder, or your home directory font folder (there's the option for either and for os 9 too) -- this is a complete nightmare, I have all my fonts neatly in their own folders, and I often have to send them off with design jobs. Suitcase lets you specify where they are activated from... Why doesn't FB have this?!
Oh Apple hear my plea....
From what I can tell, it MOVES your fonts from the selected location, and dumps them all together in either the main font library folder, or your home directory font folder (there's the option for either and for os 9 too) -- this is a complete nightmare, I have all my fonts neatly in their own folders, and I often have to send them off with design jobs. Suitcase lets you specify where they are activated from... Why doesn't FB have this?!
Oh Apple hear my plea....
Apple has a feedback button on the Mac OS X page (as well as pages for the iApps). If you have an enhancement suggestion, use the form and submit it. It's the best way to make sure Apple here's your plea. And if multiple people suggest something (in their own words) it has a better chance of being fixed.
Fontbook
I was really looking forward to dumping Suitcase in favor of Fontbook. I spent alot of time yesterday trying to get things going with FB last last night and early this morning.
Good: It is easler to use than Suitcase. I've always hated suitcase and it has caused my Mac to slow down and crash on several occasions ever since I put it on.
Bad: Font Book is not as robust as I would have liked. I don't understand the collections at all. I think you should be able to create collections and then be able to disable them to turn the font on. I don't need every one of my hundreds of fonts to load up everytime I start my mac. I want to create different collections for different jobs, but Font Book does not seem to behave as you would intuitively think it should.
That being said, with Suitcase off my system, it is running a lot better. Although there are some other issues with Safari and some other Apple apps, that seem to have corrected themselves with a restart.
I really hope Apple pays attention to this part of their system and comes out with upgrades on a regular basis. I have always hated third party products handling my fonts. Makes sense to have Apple take care of them for you.
HEY APPLE! Make Font Book better! PLEASE!
I was really looking forward to dumping Suitcase in favor of Fontbook. I spent alot of time yesterday trying to get things going with FB last last night and early this morning.
Good: It is easler to use than Suitcase. I've always hated suitcase and it has caused my Mac to slow down and crash on several occasions ever since I put it on.
Bad: Font Book is not as robust as I would have liked. I don't understand the collections at all. I think you should be able to create collections and then be able to disable them to turn the font on. I don't need every one of my hundreds of fonts to load up everytime I start my mac. I want to create different collections for different jobs, but Font Book does not seem to behave as you would intuitively think it should.
That being said, with Suitcase off my system, it is running a lot better. Although there are some other issues with Safari and some other Apple apps, that seem to have corrected themselves with a restart.
I really hope Apple pays attention to this part of their system and comes out with upgrades on a regular basis. I have always hated third party products handling my fonts. Makes sense to have Apple take care of them for you.
HEY APPLE! Make Font Book better! PLEASE!
Font Book works for me...But??
My initial opinion of Font Book was not favorable...because I grew impatient and pulled a force quit after I tried to add all the fonts in my collection into Font Book using the Add Fonts... command.
After a force quit and some cleaning up of my hard drive...I went to sleep pretty disappointed (since Font Book was one of the big reasons I upgraded).
I manually installed some fonts for a job I was working on...then opened up Font Book and played around. They appeared and disappeared in Adobe Illustrator as I clicked the Enable/Disable option.
Manually installing Fonts and then using Font Book is also better as I tend to keep my Fonts organized in folders...something I noticed the Add Fonts... command didn't do.
Now I wonder...just how many fonts can I add and still have Font Book work effectively?
My initial opinion of Font Book was not favorable...because I grew impatient and pulled a force quit after I tried to add all the fonts in my collection into Font Book using the Add Fonts... command.
After a force quit and some cleaning up of my hard drive...I went to sleep pretty disappointed (since Font Book was one of the big reasons I upgraded).
I manually installed some fonts for a job I was working on...then opened up Font Book and played around. They appeared and disappeared in Adobe Illustrator as I clicked the Enable/Disable option.
Manually installing Fonts and then using Font Book is also better as I tend to keep my Fonts organized in folders...something I noticed the Add Fonts... command didn't do.
Now I wonder...just how many fonts can I add and still have Font Book work effectively?
I tested Fontbook at the weekend and I was so thrilled that there would be build-in font management in Panther. But it is just a POS! It might be handy for amateur users, but not for professionals. Apple should be ashamed to put something so buggy and unfinished in a system like Panther (which overall is amazing)! Not only that all the fonts are copied to the fonts folder(s) and are always active, no matter what (very nice when you are having a few hundred fonts on your machine). It also just doesn't recognize some fonts. You install them but they never show up! It's a nice try, not more...
A 2 out of 10!
Welcome back suitcase!
groovebuster
A 2 out of 10!
Welcome back suitcase!
groovebuster
GB - Thanks for preserving my sanity, I seriously thought it was just me and FB was just so simple that I was overlooking something.
As you said, for a select market, it will suffice, but as a designer who relies heavily on font management, it is completely useless... Even ATM deluxe back in OS 9 could manage fonts from specified folders and not MOVE them to a system one. It would be bearable even if they just copied the fonts from their original location (and left my originals where they belong). Thank god I had a back up, it would have taken me DAYS to re-sort all my fonts back in to their respetive folders.
Two other points - There is clearly "activate & Deactivate" buttons on there, but they are simply not functioning.
Apple has a HUGE following within the design community and I daresay a large proportion of their sales derive from it.
I'm quite surprised Apple released this in it's current state, I mean it is a GREAT start, It is straightforward, showcases your fonts with 3 preview options, and most importantly, there is no visual intereference with a nasty interface. (Hello Suitcase) it has such potential and I look forward to a fully functioning version that professionals can utilize.
Someone mentioned in a previous post a feedback link for FontBook. Does anyone have the actual link? I can't seem to find it.
Thanks!
i know this is slightly off-topic, but since a lot of people in this thread are probably designers, BE CAREFUL with installing Panther. My Epson scanner is suddenly almost totally unusable (because the Epson branded scanner software doesn't run under Panther), and I'm forced to use Image Capture, which as any designer would know is not versatile enough for REAL scanning.
Just thought I'd mention it. I too am disappointed with FontBook.
Just thought I'd mention it. I too am disappointed with FontBook.
I too was looking forward to Font Book as i have never liked Suitcase... dont even get me started on FontResrve. But i must say that it is almost useless.
Being a user of Suitcase I promptly loaded all of my fonts up on Font Book (about 2500 fonts, alot of fonts but suitcase never seemed to mind). After waiting a good 45 mins for all of them too load up i began to fiddle around with it and found that, as was said before, there was no rhyme or reason to what fonts got activated in what program. Further more becuase of the amount of fonts i had loaded on FontBook the program itself became very sluggish. Even with only 10 or so of my fonts activated the program was a slow poke. Finally i decided to quit but it locked up my machine. I restarted and found that after my system loaded, it sat on my desktop with no finder for at least 15 mins before I was able to use it. Promptly went in, took out all the fonts i loaded and bam, back to normal.
I will most likely be going back to Suitcase until they figure this thing out. Oh ATM how i miss thee.
Being a user of Suitcase I promptly loaded all of my fonts up on Font Book (about 2500 fonts, alot of fonts but suitcase never seemed to mind). After waiting a good 45 mins for all of them too load up i began to fiddle around with it and found that, as was said before, there was no rhyme or reason to what fonts got activated in what program. Further more becuase of the amount of fonts i had loaded on FontBook the program itself became very sluggish. Even with only 10 or so of my fonts activated the program was a slow poke. Finally i decided to quit but it locked up my machine. I restarted and found that after my system loaded, it sat on my desktop with no finder for at least 15 mins before I was able to use it. Promptly went in, took out all the fonts i loaded and bam, back to normal.
I will most likely be going back to Suitcase until they figure this thing out. Oh ATM how i miss thee.
Ha, same thing happened to me. I loaded about 4000 fonts and my machine slowed to a crawl. Startup took about 20 mins, launching any apps took about 15 minutes, and Fontbook would lock up when I tried to remove them. In the end I reinstalled Panther. Is Suitcase still fully compatible, coz that's what I'll be using?
Another complaint about FontBook...If you are on a machine with more than one user, and that user logs on, Font Book disables the user and Classic fonts (at least on my machine) for the original user.
This is taken care of with a restart, but what a pain. It should be able to remember from user to user what fonts to load.
I would consider putting Suitcase back on, but I really don't like that app. I have to say at the very least, Suitcase did what you were supposed to do. In many ways, Fontbook doesn't make any sense at all.
This is taken care of with a restart, but what a pain. It should be able to remember from user to user what fonts to load.
I would consider putting Suitcase back on, but I really don't like that app. I have to say at the very least, Suitcase did what you were supposed to do. In many ways, Fontbook doesn't make any sense at all.
same here. fontbook was a feature i was most looking forward to, but it has turned out to be a complete POS. it screwed up all my font orginazation (i hate all the other font managers so i do it myself) froze up my machine, and even eventually forced me to do a complete reinstall (glad i tested it on my laptop first and didn't give it the chance to f-up my work machine). also, the most simple features don't even work. for instance, i have two different version of caslon (now three with panther) adobe caslon, and caslon 3. they have differnt names and are in different folders, but whenever i try to disable one of them font book disables the other as well! f*n useless!
zero stars!
i'm waiting at least a year before i even open the damn program again.
t.o
zero stars!
i'm waiting at least a year before i even open the damn program again.
t.o
I've been copying font files into the /Library/fonts directory after finding that allowing FontBook to add them meant that it moved them. I was glad to see that it allowed you to select whether the typefaces were to be available to everyone or just the current user.
It seems to have found quite a few font files that I'd forgotten, so I'll retrieve those later, but it really needs to be enhanced. Mind you, the average end user is not going to need to activate typefaces in Illustrator, Freehand, XPress, or InDesign, so it's not quite as big of a deal. Apple knows that third party solutions should remain and they're trying to stay out of that territory by creating a minimal product.
It seems to have found quite a few font files that I'd forgotten, so I'll retrieve those later, but it really needs to be enhanced. Mind you, the average end user is not going to need to activate typefaces in Illustrator, Freehand, XPress, or InDesign, so it's not quite as big of a deal. Apple knows that third party solutions should remain and they're trying to stay out of that territory by creating a minimal product.
I don't know if this to be entirely true. Just because Extensis has a product that has had the benefit of time to enhance it to its 11th revision, which IMHO, still has many flaws. There is no reason why Apple cannot and should not address the basic functionality issues that FB currently has. It makes sense that something like font management, which ties closely in with the OS, should be handled by the OS. Given some time, I honestly hope that Apple turn FB into what Suitcase *should* be.
Designers make up a large number of Mac users, (and home users becoming increasingly aware of the variety of fonts available) so it would make sense that Apple handle this. And I don't think the livelihood of third party developers should be a reason to stop a crippled product becoming a first rate one. This isn't the first time Apple have entered the realm of challenging 3rd party developers...
I am really surprised Apple released it in it's current state. I get the feeling, due to the Panther release date it was snatched from project managers in its incomplete state, just to make up their 150 New (and in very small print: imcomplete) Features...
Cant wait for Font Book 2. (or maybe 5)
*!$* Fontbook!
So I did the same thing, copied all my fonts onto into Fontbook which resulted in turning my mac to a snail rather than a panther. Tried deactivating them - which I think deactivated some of the System fonts which doesn't help at all.
Can anyone tell me which basic sytem fonts should be in my system fonts folder and user fonts folder so I can ditch everthing and start again.
Oh yeah, and Font Book crashes when using certain fonts. POS!!!!!
Thanks
So I did the same thing, copied all my fonts onto into Fontbook which resulted in turning my mac to a snail rather than a panther. Tried deactivating them - which I think deactivated some of the System fonts which doesn't help at all.
Can anyone tell me which basic sytem fonts should be in my system fonts folder and user fonts folder so I can ditch everthing and start again.
Oh yeah, and Font Book crashes when using certain fonts. POS!!!!!
Thanks
My biggest complaint with suitcase was that it remained in the dock, and i don't like a cluttered dock. As far as functionality I think its a great program, auto activation is really convenient.
Font book seems to work ok, its still not everything i need, but it does put all your fonts in one directory, personally i like this cause i can fix all my duplicate font issues that i've had in the past. This may be annoying to some users, and i would understand because im a neat freak myself when it comes to file organization.
All in all though, Im going to keep with font book and see how well it does in a production environment, and then go from there.
Font book seems to work ok, its still not everything i need, but it does put all your fonts in one directory, personally i like this cause i can fix all my duplicate font issues that i've had in the past. This may be annoying to some users, and i would understand because im a neat freak myself when it comes to file organization.
All in all though, Im going to keep with font book and see how well it does in a production environment, and then go from there.
Re: *!$* Fontbook!
That could be due to corrupt fonts. -- Even Suitcase craps its pants when you try to preview a corrupt font. (well at least on my system it does)
That could be due to corrupt fonts. -- Even Suitcase craps its pants when you try to preview a corrupt font. (well at least on my system it does)
Re: Re: *!$* Fontbook!
At least, Suitcase includes Font Doctor. Hopefully, it works fine.
I was just wondering how many flaws Symantec introduced while they had Suitcase as a product. It seems back in the early days, Suitcase was a good product.
FontBook definitely needs some work just to compete but I'm still trying it to save the money I'd otherwise be spending.
While I was copying font files through Finder, I noticed an interesting 3D effect with the file icons. Perhaps, there's more to the Quartz Compositor in Panther.
At least, Suitcase includes Font Doctor. Hopefully, it works fine.
I was just wondering how many flaws Symantec introduced while they had Suitcase as a product. It seems back in the early days, Suitcase was a good product.
FontBook definitely needs some work just to compete but I'm still trying it to save the money I'd otherwise be spending.
While I was copying font files through Finder, I noticed an interesting 3D effect with the file icons. Perhaps, there's more to the Quartz Compositor in Panther.
Attachments
Font Book not working at all
I've upgraded to 10.3. Font Book seemed promising but has been nothing but trouble.
Font activation is flaky. Forget about managing system fonts. No way to view fonts by type (PS, TrueType, etc.). Adding fonts doesn't always work. Fonts appear and disappear from Font Book for no reason. Lots of unexpected quits. Lots of long-spinning beach balls. No auto-activation in Quark or Illustrator.
But MOST irritating is that there's no way in Font Book to preserve your font folders (like if you organize your fonts by project or client) -- Font Book will either MOVE or COPY your fonts into your ~/Library/Fonts folder when added. I can't imagine why any serious graphic artist would use this utility. What was Apple thinking?
That said, I want to go back to Suitcase X1. But since I upgraded to 10.3, Suitcase has been having major problems. Does anyone know if there's a conflict? Can I uninstall Font Book? Should I do so? Suitcase was pretty reliable in 10.2, but no more with Panther. Anyone else having similar issues? Any advice?
I've upgraded to 10.3. Font Book seemed promising but has been nothing but trouble.
Font activation is flaky. Forget about managing system fonts. No way to view fonts by type (PS, TrueType, etc.). Adding fonts doesn't always work. Fonts appear and disappear from Font Book for no reason. Lots of unexpected quits. Lots of long-spinning beach balls. No auto-activation in Quark or Illustrator.
But MOST irritating is that there's no way in Font Book to preserve your font folders (like if you organize your fonts by project or client) -- Font Book will either MOVE or COPY your fonts into your ~/Library/Fonts folder when added. I can't imagine why any serious graphic artist would use this utility. What was Apple thinking?
That said, I want to go back to Suitcase X1. But since I upgraded to 10.3, Suitcase has been having major problems. Does anyone know if there's a conflict? Can I uninstall Font Book? Should I do so? Suitcase was pretty reliable in 10.2, but no more with Panther. Anyone else having similar issues? Any advice?