Comments on: Font Browser

Font Browser

bluedaniel — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:06:01 -0800

This interface displays a preview of the fonts active on your system. Could be useful for a quick check on what's what.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:10:11 -0800

wow, that's really lame.

By: marvin

marvin — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:14:50 -0800

wow, that's really excellent. Thanks.

By: namespan

namespan — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:17:55 -0800

I thought metafilter was for interesting stuff, not useful.... Thanks bluedaniel!

By: bluedaniel

bluedaniel — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:30:29 -0800

I should think "unnecessary" long before "lame," but then I don't think that either. And at first I did wonder if there was any point to it, then realized it could be extremely useful in a number of circumstances. It's wicked fast and damn accurate, and makes for a great quick check to see which fonts are what and how they react under various settings. (A two-for-one deal namespan? heh heh heh...)

By: muckster

muckster — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:39:50 -0800

i dig it

By: RylandDotNet

RylandDotNet — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:57:49 -0800

[this is good]

By: Mick

Mick — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:02:05 -0800

This is great, makes finding that perfect font a little quicker then when I've got a huge file open in Photoshop.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:08:14 -0800

how do it know? some security-ignoring microsoft "feature", or does it work with any browser/OS?

By: weston

weston — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:13:17 -0800

Works in Safari, so it's safe to say it's not Microsoft's fault. I'll bet Flash simply knows what fonts are available to it, and those are likely to be those that are available to your browser, which in turn are likely to be those installed/active on your system.

By: clevershark

clevershark — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:27:19 -0800

It works in Firebird on Linux, so it definitely has nothing to do with Microsoft :-)

By: dhoyt

dhoyt — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:34:14 -0800

Great post, bluedaniel. For designing logos and previewing potential typefaces, that is a really useful tool worth bookmarking. This is what makes MeFi great. Thank you!

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:36:09 -0800

I like fonts. Did you see the goat? 0123456789

By: bluedaniel

bluedaniel — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:50:10 -0800

A few thoughts: Marvin, Namespan, Mucktser, Ryland - thanks for the fast save, a 1st comment that perhaps the FPP wasn't a wise idea bought the beer. Mick and Dhoyt - that's what I thought as well. Finally the frustrations of seeking out and testing are more or less over. Quonsar, Weston and Clevershark - I wondered that myself right after I posted. Flash can import and/or resource a multitude of external files and resources, but I know of no way it can dip into one's system, mind for the late night snack of a cookie, so I'm clueless as to how it functions. I'm still checking on every source of actionscript to see what makes this bugger tick, but I'm at a loss. As a result, I'll bet it's something damn simple that we're overlooking. David - I saw a Llama and a Yak, and then the medication kicked in...

By: spartacusroosevelt

spartacusroosevelt — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:56:49 -0800

Awesome, thanx blue daniel. Very very handy. And it saved perfectly.

By: pinto

pinto — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:06:41 -0800

ditto not having to open / strain photoshop. rad link.

By: skallas

skallas — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:17:51 -0800

If you like this you'll love Browser Spy, unfortunately only half the information can only be gotten using Moz. Why, yes, your website does need to know what soundcard I'm using! Considering Flash has a build in webcam and microphone interface, revealing fonts seems to be the least of its potential security issues.

By: britain

britain — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:19:20 -0800

Too sweet. And no registration required. Joe Bob says check it out! Thanks, bluedaniel!

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:27:53 -0800

It is much faster than any of the font viewer programs I have ever installed on my computer. Very cool.

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:32:40 -0800

Oh wait - I just realized that the computer I'm on only has 37 fonts, and my other computers have over 1500. So I don't think the font loading speeds can even be compared. So nevermind.

By: LinusMines

LinusMines — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 23:38:49 -0800

Nice post...thanks!

By: namespan

namespan — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 00:00:15 -0800

from skallas' link: CSS Information: Does your browser reveal what sites you have been visiting...? WTF? It can use style sheets to reveal what sites I've been visiting? It knows I've been visiting slashdot (which, I'm ashamed to say, is true). Anyone know more about this exploit?

By: Pigpen

Pigpen — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 00:30:50 -0800

I would be gutted that this makes the font viewer program I wrote a few weeks ago redundant, except that I've already had my eyes opened to how underwhelming this is, walking past a friend's workstation and seeing her use Word to do the same, just as rapidly as my program and this thing.

By: arto

arto — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 01:47:50 -0800

By: mokey

mokey — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 07:04:32 -0800

well, i like the font browser for it's aesthetic qualities, not it's usefulness.

By: krunk

krunk — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 08:41:12 -0800

Great post; I wish windows offered more font organization than simply dumping them all in one directory. If I'm not mistaken, the next release of OS X lets you categorize your fonts into folders... why did it take this long for someone to think of that?

By: Shoeburyness

Shoeburyness — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 08:59:43 -0800

Perfect companion to the Tack-o-rama post that had the cool repository of fonts.

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 09:31:29 -0800

WTF? It can use style sheets to reveal what sites I've been visiting? It knows I've been visiting slashdot (which, I'm ashamed to say, is true). Anyone know more about this exploit? Have a look at the code. It links to a whole bunch of sites, then uses JS and the DOM to check the link color and/or style of those links. If the links are of the 'visited' variety, it knows you've been there. No big privacy violation, just a clever way of manipulating the data already there.

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 09:33:56 -0800

the next release of OS X lets you categorize your fonts into folders... why did it take this long for someone to think of that? It hasn't. It's just taken this long for someone to bother to put it in as a freebie, rather than having third parties deal with it. Most people with large collections of fonts will probably already have Adobe Type Manager or Suitcase which have both offered categorization features and beyond for years.

By: buzzv

buzzv — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 10:01:14 -0800

This is one fine find. Thanks, bluedaniel. A couple of questions for anyone in a helpful-sort-of-Sunday-morning-mood: Using IE or Netscape on my WinXP system, fontBROWSER displays an Arial-looking font for Arial*, Courier*, Wingdings*, and others, but the majority of my 200+ fonts are displayed correctly -- does this happen for anyone else? Could anyone out there help me explain or remedy this? (Undying gratitude in advance from this font infant as he wobbles in his first steps as a font toddler...)

By: substrate

substrate — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 12:52:57 -0800

Like buzzy said, there have been 3rd party utilities that do this. Apple is sort of screwed either way. There's a party of people that want them to include it in the standard operating system then there's another party that gets pissed off if Apple includes something similar to what a 3rd party developer has included.

By: dg

dg — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 19:14:00 -0800

[this is good] While MS Word can show the fonts in preview, it is very slow to scroll through and is nowhere near as convenient. I like.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 21:27:19 -0800

Oh, yay you! What a great find, thanks!

By: Down10

Down10 — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 02:08:51 -0800

Pretty damn impressive for a Flash app. It's lightning quick and took almost no time to load. It also has enough features to be usable on a regular basis. Well done!