[Openfontlibrary] Font File Type and Admins?

[Dave Crossland]

On 31/10/06, Ed Trager <ed.trager at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> George Williams has, to the best of my knowledge, stated that porting
> FontForge to GTK+ and/or QT/KDE would not result in any immediate
> benefit in terms of functionality and would, therefore, be a waste of
> his time.

I can understand this point of view, and like Jon, hope that other
developers will take on the job. Nevertheless, here is my screed:

"Pretty is a feature" [3]

While this is true in terms of functionality, designers do actually
evaluate software on the UI toolkit in use.

I remember during the OS9 -> OS X transition period, design tutors at
an art college I went to were gushing about the Aqua interface and how
they couldn't believe they had stayed with grey old OS9 when it was
soooo preeeettty.

They had stayed because Quark took years to port XPress to OS X, Apple
actually had to give them money and engineers to pull it off, and
InDesign before version 2 wasn't viable. But they basically didn't
consciously understand this, they just stuck with it because every one
else was, and switched when they noticed other people were. FWIW,
Influence Psychologists called this "social proof." [0]

Today, when demonstrating Free Design Software to designers, I find
that they often compare the Apple Aqua interface to the Ubuntu Human
GTK2 Clearlooks(?) theme. Brown is not always a hit, but its viable,
especially when the I don the bling [1] :-)

When Gustavo writes

> the grey interface doesn't scare me

he is perhaps implying, in a subtle way, that most designers are in
fact SCARED by FontForge's grey interface.

I would say that this was indeed the case, having spent 4 years at a
London design university and getting to know normal designers. [2]
Something that will fit into the general desktop theming system is
pretty much mandatory for designers, as a themeable desktop is a
novelty to most designers, and though it has a short half life, does
attract people to the free desktop.

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini
[1]: http://www.beryl-project.org/
[2]: http://www.rave.ac.uk
[3]: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/63

> but I really don't think this is what is most needed at this time.
> Getting the right functionality, regardless of the visual finesse of
> the GUI, should, IMO, continue be the first priority.

This discussion should probably move to the fontforge mailing lists :-)

-- 
Regards,
Dave