Font Book v. Suitcase?

[pixelsmudge]

Font madness

I've been experiencing loads of problems since aqdding some fonts into my User Library fonts folder. When I tried to open Printer Setup Utility, System Preferences User Accounts or iCal I just got spinning death beachballs, and Safari just kept bobing up and down in the dock endlessly without launching or reporting an error message.
Ok I thought, there must be a font in my user library fonts clashing with the system fonts... I decided to take all the fonts that were duplicated in System and User Library out of the User Library to see what would happen. I restarted to find that my apps were up and running properly again but Fontbook had disabled Classic fonts and User fonts. I have tried clicking on enable fonts for both but nothing happens, so now I only have system fonts available.
Any ideas how on earth I get my User Library and Classic fonts available again? Maybe I took something out that I shouldn't have... Can anyone tell me what basic fonts should be in the system and user library and I'll try starting from scratch.
Also, if you add fonts directly to your user library does fontbook automatically know this or do you have to add fonts through fontbook?

 

[DesignerMike]

Font Book vs. Suitcase -- System Font Issues

As far as what fonts are needed by OS X and what fonts you can ditch, I found the following from Extensis to be very helpful:

<b>Which fonts are absolutely necessary by Mac OS X?

Mac OS X installs several fonts in the /System/Library/Fonts/ directory right off the bat. Guess what? You can't move these fonts. Nope, there's nothing you can do with them. There are good things about this and there are some bad things as well. The good part is that by not allowing you to muck around in this font folder, the OS is guaranteeing itself that the fonts that it needs are always available. That's a good thing. It's a bad thing if you happen to have a font with the name Helvetica though.</b>

And also...

<b>Font Management and Mac OS X

Here a Font Directory, There a Font Directory, Everywhere a Font Directory
Depending on software installation and the number of users on a particular machine, there are four or more Font folders in Mac OS X. If you don't use a font manager, you may install fonts by copying or dragging font files to any of the standard Font folders in Mac OS X. Depending on which folder the font is in, the font will be available or accessible by different users. The following table outlines the different Fonts folders and the access that each provides.

Type of Use Font Folder Font Description
User ~/Library/Fonts/
The tilde character "~" is used to represent a user's Home. Fonts located in this folder are available to that user. Fonts located here are not available to other users who may log into the same machine.
Mac OS X does not require that any fonts be located in this folder.
Local /Library/Fonts/ Fonts located in this folder are available to all local users of the machine. Only an Admin user can modify the contents of this folder. This is the folder where Apple suggests applications should install shared fonts.
Mac OS X does not require that any fonts be located in this folder.
Network /Network/Library/Fonts/ Fonts located in this folder are shared among all users on a local area network. Typically, this folder is used on a network file server that is controlled by a network administrator.
Mac OS X does not require that any fonts be located in this folder.
System /System/Library/Fonts Fonts located in this folder are required by Mac OS X for system use and displays.
Mac OS X requires these fonts and as such it is not recommended that the contents of this folder should be removed or altered in any manner.
Classic /System Folder/Fonts/ Fonts in this folder are used by the Classic environment. These fonts are available to Mac OS X applications even if the Classic environment is not running. Fonts located outside of this folder are not available to Classic applications.
Mac OS X does not require these fonts but will make them available to OS X applications. Please note that this System Folder should not be confused with the Mac OS X System folder.

You probably have a font in your collection that is named "Helvetica". It's okay, we all do. But guess what? So does Mac OS X's System folder and according to that little tidbit above under no circumstances should you modify the contents of the /System/Library/Fonts/ directory. So what are you going to do with that version of Helvetica that is sitting in your UserName/Library/Fonts/ directory? Fear not, Mac OS X resolves duplicates based on the order of precedence defined for the standard Fonts folders. The order of precedence (from highest to lowest) is outlined below.

1. User Fonts folder (~/Library/Fonts/)
2. Local Fonts folder (/Library/Fonts/)
3. Network Fonts folder (/Network/Library/Fonts/)
4. System Fonts folder (/System/Library/Fonts/)
5. Classic Fonts folder (/System Folder/Fonts/)

But what if you’ve got more than one version of Helvetica in your personal font library? You can’t have both of them sitting in your User Font folder. That’s where Suitcase comes in. Below you’ll find information on how Suitcase can solve these conflicts and much more.</b>

...Like you, I also ran into problems with fonts, spinning beach balls, etc. All of these occured after I had used Font Book.

I STRONGLY recommend you read the following page from Extensis:

http://www.extensis.com/products/2d.html

After a few attempts, I droppped Font Book like a bad habit. In my opinion it is not equipped to handle the demands of serious and reliable font management for graphic artists. It's not even close.

As for the spinning beach balls, etc... I had good luck using Disk Utility to Repair Disk Permissions. That usually fixed it... but the best thing I did was:

1) Re-install OS X 10.3 (Erase and Install)
2) Remove all fonts from /Library/Fonts
3) DO NOT TOUCH fonts in /System/Library/Fonts
4) DO NOT use Font Book
5) Place your basic "core" fonts in /Library/Fonts (inlcuding, say, PostScript Helvetica, PS Courier, PS Times, PS Symbol and PS Zapf Dingbats if you use them)
6) Get Suitcase X1. Install it and set up your fonts in it.
7) Repair Disk Permissions from time to time
8) If problems persist, go into /System/Library/Preferences, delete the Suitcase .plist file, and the Suitacse Preferences folder. Re-do all your font sets in Suitcase.

I hope SOMETHING above helps!!! Good luck!!!

 

[pixelsmudge]

Thanks a million Mike, very helpful! I took everything out of my user library fonts folder, kept just the basic data-fork font suitcases in my sytem folder and installed Suitcase. Will try Fontbook again someday when it actually works.

As for bouzouka's "My advice is always: when you depend on your machine for your pay, you wait until things have been worked out. Let other people be the testers." Give it a rest mate, why don't you just stick your tongue out and say, I told you so! Unless you've got something useful to offer to this thread then please do us all a foavour and keep your "advice" to yourself.

 

[superfastaction]

Same... thanks! My first day at a new job and bang... Font Book kicks me in the crotch. ;( I did the same as above and it did the trick. One thing to note: do NOT keep your fonts in the Users/username/Library/Fonts folder, or Font Book will keep an eye on them and mess you up. The rub is, while Suitcase has to be 'open' to function, Font Book doesn't (is it more of a control panel for the os??) so it will create conflicts. I had some really strange things going on...

My suggestion is to create a folder in your Home location and keep your fonts there. Thanks again for the help!!!

 

[scan300]

I've had a good look at fontbook, and I've decided to give it a serious go.

Fontbook is different to Suitcase, in that it uses the font folder to load fonts rather than faking the font folder system as all font management software has done in the past.

Fontbook uses the font collections preference files, introduced in Jaguar to disable fonts, but the font itself remains in the fonts folder. If you set your prferences to copy a font when you install a font you can avoid having it removed from your organised collections.

When I first installed my 1600 odd fonts, it activated the whole lot, slowing my layout and illustration software. I quickly selected all the fonts and disabled them. Luckily this doesn't disable all of the required system fonts, as they are protected, but a few necessary ones will need to be re-enabled.

I started to delete the existing sets I didn't require and create new sets of my own. The confusing thing was that my new set was enabled but the fonts in it were disabled. I discovered it was worthwhile to disable all of the sets first. In short, begin by turning off everything.

Then enable the sets you require. There is a pdf with some extra explanation of fontbook on the OSX fontbook page: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/fontbook/

SOME THINGS TO AVOID: Don't add and/or remove fonts from any of the system or user font folders. This confuses Fontbook.

Don't use Fontbook and Suitcase or FontReserve together.

Don't install fonts procured from the public domain if you want a stable system. Install your fonts from their original disks, to weed out file corruption. Corrupt fonts, and badly encoded fonts are one of the greatest causes of system instability that I come across.

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT FONTBOOK: Full page vertical lists. (Suitcase X splits your font list and your set lists vertically, so you see less of your lists.)

Double click on a font to get a decent preview, without having to install it. (Option to install if you wish to)

Well designed preview pane.

System native software.

No requirement to keep application open.

Ability to turn off many of the preinstalled fonts that came with the system.

Great stability, (though slow) with 1,600 fonts open.

MY DISLIKES:
No auto-activation of fonts. (There is a possibility that applscript could be used to create some of this functionality in the future, but Fontbook is currently not scriptable).

Slow to open, if you have a sizeable collection installed. (Activated or not)

Not intuitive to begin with. (Easy to use once you get it going properly)

Everthing is on by default. (ie all fonts are activated when installed).

Too easy to make your system unstable if you fiddle with your fonts folder after using Fontbook.

 

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by pixelsmudge

...
As for bouzouka's "My advice is always: when you depend on your machine for your pay, you wait until things have been worked out. Let other people be the testers." Give it a rest mate, why don't you just stick your tongue out and say, I told you so! Unless you've got something useful to offer to this thread then please do us all a foavour and keep your "advice" to yourself.

Your tone is unnecessary. It's not a matter of saying I told you so. I adopted early and I'm feeling the pain, but I left one drive with 10.2.8 on it because I know what can happen. I also had to keep people at various companies from becoming early adopters just because of situations like this.