[Openfontlibrary] Ann: A new version of FontyPython - TTF manager for Gnu/Linux

Dave Crossland dave at lab6.com
Thu Dec 7 15:33:08 PST 2006


Hi Donn!

On 07/12/06, Donn <donn.ingle at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello - new to the list, I was pointed here from a post on the Inkscape lists.

Awesome :-)

> If anyone wants to manage TTF fonts under Linux, then FontyPython should do
> the trick.

This is a very important tool for the Free Font Movement! :-)

> If anyone wants to help me, we could get it working with other font types too.
> I know nothing at all about Type 1 and company.

IMO the fontforge-devel list is the best place to ask about that -
http://fontforge.sf.net - though the maintainer of FontForge, George
Williams, is on this list also.

> If you do install it, I would love to receive screenshots of it on your
> systems.

Fonty Python was mentioned on the Scribus mailing list, and I was
going to contact you in the new year (about to go on holiday) but here
are my posts to the Scribus list, and I apologies that my ideas aren't
so well explained:



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com>
Date: 05-Dec-2006 17:29
Subject: Re: [Scribus] Font management programs
To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de


On 05/12/06, Craig Ringer <craig at postnewspapers.com.au> wrote:
>
> > If so, what is it and how does one go about getting it?
>
> I wouldn't bother, myself.
>
> If after reading the above you still want one, I'd be very interested to
> know why - what you think it'll gain you, what you need to be able to
> do, etc.

Although kluding a fix for the stability issues of toy operating
systems was certainly the primary reason for those tools, its
important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Mac OS X has similar font-loading functionality/stability to
GNU+Linux, but Suitcase has been ported to OS X and is still used by
many professional graphic designers.

What it gains you is the ability to create a hierarchic catalogue of
your own fonts, arranged in whatever order you like. The utility of
this to professional graphic designers should not be underestimated,
despite that it is not neccessary for many non-professional graphic
designers, which at the moment is the bulk of Scribus' user base.

The popularity of Suitcase may seem surprising since Mac OS X includes
this functionality in its native font chooser dialog as 'collections':

http://www.unifont.org/fontdialog/images/TexEditPlusUsingMacOSXFontDialogComponent-WebVersion.png

However, this is mostly (only?) used by software made with the
Objective C Cocoa framework, and most design applications are ported
from the old Mac OS using the Carbon framework. That's where Suitcase
X comes in.

Or Fonty Python - which on its homepage reads "As a designer, I missed
the ability to view and keep lists of fonts in easy-to-use
collections."


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com>
Date: 06-Dec-2006 01:44
Subject: Re: [Scribus] Font management programs
To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de


On 05/12/06, Peter Nermander <peter.nermander at abc.se> wrote:
> > What it gains you is the ability to create a hierarchic catalogue of
> > your own fonts, arranged in whatever order you like. The utility of
> > this to professional graphic designers should not be underestimated,
> > despite that it is not neccessary for many non-professional graphic
> > designers, which at the moment is the bulk of Scribus' user base.
>
> Couldn't this be acheived by using a directory of symlinks to the real fonts?
> So the "font manager" would manage this set of symlinks.

Yes, that might work. But it could be achieved many ways in the back
end, the important thing is the front end - a good GUI that makes it
easy to do is the primary thing :-)

Although I wrote 'hierarchic catalogue,' I think a system that takes
into account more recent ways of organising things - tagging - could
be very useful.

Perhaps some kind of web service could be created that you could
upload your catalog to, and so when you added a new font the system
could look at what other fonts it is commonly grouped with and present
those groupings as suggestions?

-- 
Regards,
Dave


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