Comments on: Fontcase released. Typographical awesomeness for everyone!

By: Brady J. Frey

Brady J. Frey — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:20:53 +0000

I should have updated my notes – I actually held back on buying this after we started testing further throughout the week. Auto-activation was a big factor, but we were having some import font bugs that were crashing the application frequently. Try as we might, we couldn’t get around it.

So for now, I’m still with Font Explorer… and I’m still waiting for them to email me back about the server edition. Hopefully someday they let me know:)

By: Bryan Hoffman

Bryan Hoffman — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:16:54 +0000

@Brady – Agreed that Font Book is terrible, I’d say even for non designers.

I’ve taken FontCase for a spin, and while there’s a lot to like about it, I’m sticking with Font Explorer X. Why?

1. Auto-activation.
2. Auto-activation.

FEX also got me out of the dark days of Extensis Suitcase, and I feel a strong loyalty because of it.

By: Brady J. Frey

Brady J. Frey — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:45:59 +0000

Sure, I understand that – but if that’s the case, I’m sure those people wouldn’t even need to be talking about if $40+ is worth it for software they don’t need. But Font Book is trash, that program has been error prone since the entry OS X days, even Leopard’s build.

By: Milind Alvares

Milind Alvares — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:06:28 +0000

@Brady: For most who aren’t involved with design, having a font manager is pointless. Especially when we do have Font Book for the Mac.

By: Brady J. Frey

Brady J. Frey — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:40:54 +0000

Seriously people, you’re complaining about $40+ for quality software? And font management to boot? Font management has always been a pain – Linotype’s free xplorer was a jump ahead of Extensis dated product, but didn’t allow us to collaborate in teams – although ironically their server version just came out about the same time now.

What’s funny is that while I’m still waiting for the FontXplorer Pro guys to get back to me about my quote for a server edition (we’re on 4 days, just an automated response), I demoed this between four users, and it stood up to some of our heavy web + print design with all my designers. Come monday I was going to have one of them buy the four copies.

…again though, fonts are a disaster to manage, I’d pay double for someone to get it right (even Apple can’t get it right). He did an excellent job finding an elegant solution to an age old problem. These are the reasons why Extensis is going the way of Quark – they shouldn’t have lost their innovation.

By: Milind Alvares

Milind Alvares — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:25:26 +0000

The great Laurent Baumann himself! Thanks for dropping by. You have done an awesome job with the design I must say!

Note that this is not a review, but a press release. We’ll be doing a proper review of this app possibly sometime soon.