[Scribus] Font management programs

[Dave Crossland]

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."

-- 
Regards,
Dave