Typester/BETA

Mapping the world of Typography, one Typophile at a time. Launch Project  |  FAQ  |  Version History

Typester | Frequently Asked Questions (Last update: 24 Sept 2004) Index of Questions: What is it? How do I use this thing? How does it work? Can I submit data to Typester? What is it? Typester attempts to map the interconnected relationships between people, places and fonts. Unless married or formerly married, two individuals never connect; rather, they connect via a variety of commonalities, such as company they worked for, font designed together, city of residence, etc. Typester was made possible thanks to a generous sponsorship by FontShop. How do I use this thing? Click to select a node. Click and drag to move the position of a node or network of nodes Double-click a node to launch a related web site. ZOOM: Zooms Typester in and out. (Zoom out to visualize greater maps of data) ROTATE: Rotates the current Typester map LOCALITY: Adjusts the 'degrees of separation' of current node Left in its default state, the amount of information Typester pushes can be overwhelming. For best results, select the pulldown menu and pull it down to 'Locality'. Then slide the horizontal slider at the top of the screen to the left one degree. This will keep the 'degrees of separation' down to a closer proximity. How does it work? Typester is powered by Touchgraph. It uses Java to parse the Typester XML data file into an interactive map format. Java can be a bit unstable at times; our goal is to eventually move Typester over to a Flash-based map for enhanced functionality and stability. Can I submit data to Typester? Yes! While we're working to automate this, right now the XML is completely hand-coded. To make things easier, use the blue XML snippets below to submit data. Replace the red text with your information. Send XML via email or attached text files to typester(at)typophile.com. Be sure to include any relevant connections between the people, places or fonts you're submitting and those that already exist in the system. To submit a PERSON, use the following XML: <NODE nodeID="unique_person_id"> <NODE_LOCATION x="300" y="100" visible="true"/> <NODE_LABEL label="Person's Name" shape="1" backColor="0000cc" textColor="ffffff" fontSize="12"/> <NODE_URL url="http://site_url_goes_here" urlIsLocal="false" urlIsXML="false"/> <NODE_HINT hint="Any descriptive text or html here will show up if the user hovers over the node with their mouse. Or leave blank." width="150" height="-1" isHTML="true"/> </NODE> To submit a new FONT, use the following XML: <NODE nodeID="font_name_id"> <NODE_LOCATION x="434" y="87" visible="true"/> <NODE_LABEL label="Font Name" shape="1" backColor="ffcc33" textColor="000000" fontSize="12"/> <NODE_URL url="http://url_goes_here" urlIsLocal="false" urlIsXML="false"/> <NODE_HINT hint="Any descriptive text or html here will show up if the user hovers over the node with their mouse. Or leave blank." width="50" height="-1" isHTML="true"/> </NODE> To submit a new PLACE, use the following XML: <NODE nodeID="place_name_id"> <NODE_LOCATION x="300" y="100" visible="true"/> <NODE_LABEL label="Place Name" shape="1" backColor="000000" textColor="cccccc" fontSize="12"/> <NODE_URL url="http://url_goes_here" urlIsLocal="false" urlIsXML="false"/> <NODE_HINT hint="Any descriptive text or html here will show up if the user hovers over the node with their mouse. Or leave blank." width="200" height="-1" isHTML="true"/> </NODE>