Font Browser
September 13, 2003 9:06 PM   Subscribe

This interface displays a preview of the fonts active on your system. Could be useful for a quick check on what's what.
posted by bluedaniel (32 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
wow, that's really lame.
posted by delmoi at 9:10 PM on September 13, 2003


wow, that's really excellent.

Thanks.
posted by marvin at 9:14 PM on September 13, 2003


I thought metafilter was for interesting stuff, not useful....

Thanks bluedaniel!
posted by namespan at 9:17 PM on September 13, 2003


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...)
posted by bluedaniel at 9:30 PM on September 13, 2003


i dig it
posted by muckster at 9:39 PM on September 13, 2003


[this is good]
posted by RylandDotNet at 9:57 PM on September 13, 2003


This is great, makes finding that perfect font a little quicker then when I've got a huge file open in Photoshop.
posted by Mick at 10:02 PM on September 13, 2003


how do it know? some security-ignoring microsoft "feature", or does it work with any browser/OS?
posted by quonsar at 10:08 PM on September 13, 2003


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.
posted by weston at 10:13 PM on September 13, 2003


It works in Firebird on Linux, so it definitely has nothing to do with Microsoft :-)
posted by clevershark at 10:27 PM on September 13, 2003


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!
posted by dhoyt at 10:34 PM on September 13, 2003


I like fonts.
Did you see the goat?
0123456789
posted by davidmsc at 10:36 PM on September 13, 2003


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...
posted by bluedaniel at 10:50 PM on September 13, 2003


Awesome, thanx blue daniel. Very very handy. And it saved perfectly.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 10:56 PM on September 13, 2003


ditto not having to open / strain photoshop. rad link.
posted by pinto at 11:06 PM on September 13, 2003


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

Thanks, bluedaniel!
posted by britain at 11:19 PM on September 13, 2003


It is much faster than any of the font viewer programs I have ever installed on my computer. Very cool.
posted by rhapsodie at 11:27 PM on September 13, 2003


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.
posted by rhapsodie at 11:32 PM on September 13, 2003


Nice post...thanks!
posted by LinusMines at 11:38 PM on September 13, 2003


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?
posted by namespan at 12:00 AM on September 14, 2003


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.
posted by Pigpen at 12:30 AM on September 14, 2003


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?

Well, apparently it doesn't work in Opera 7/Linux, and does with Galeon/Linux. Interesting...
posted by arto at 1:47 AM on September 14, 2003


well, i like the font browser for it's aesthetic qualities, not it's usefulness.
posted by mokey at 7:04 AM on September 14, 2003


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?
posted by krunk at 8:41 AM on September 14, 2003


Perfect companion to the Tack-o-rama post that had the cool repository of fonts.
posted by Shoeburyness at 8:59 AM on September 14, 2003


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.
posted by wackybrit at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2003


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.
posted by wackybrit at 9:33 AM on September 14, 2003


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...)
posted by buzzv at 10:01 AM on September 14, 2003


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.
posted by substrate at 12:52 PM on September 14, 2003


[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.
posted by dg at 7:14 PM on September 14, 2003


Oh, yay you! What a great find, thanks!
posted by dejah420 at 9:27 PM on September 14, 2003


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!
posted by Down10 at 2:08 AM on September 15, 2003


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