I just received a copy to evaluate and will be giving it the gears this coming week. I will try to post any findings or observances this week. At first glance, it looks like Insider Software has managed to address a lot of niggly little annoyances that were on my list....

Stay tuned.

It still doesn't remember my "view" preferences. I like to see the activated fonts first, but when I restart FA, it forgets your previous pane-settings.

And the interface could use a clean-up too. So messy. Other than that, the greatest, most reliable FontSoftware for OS X!

I use Suitcase X1, which I kind of like, or maybe I'm just used to it by now. Had a quick look at FontAgent, it seems quite capable.

What is it you guys prefer about FontAgent? What does it do better than Suitcase? What are its shortcomings?

I'm looking for someone who has experience with both utilities
to do an in-depth review of FAP and Suitcase for Typographica.
If this applies to you, and you can write decent english, please
mail me. You will be paid for the article.

> It still doesn't remember my "view" preferences.

Hmmm... that's odd. FAP3 is supposed to remember view pane settings across sessions. The read me even states so...

@Grant: It remembers the settings of the panes, but not what's inside the panes. The sort-order and things like that. I believe that Suitcase did that.

@ Refusenik: I prefer FontAgent because in runs in the background. If you quit the app, the fonts are still active. It's stable & almost troublefree.
And the auto-activation overlay window is pretty neat.
If only the interface was better...

<quote>
I just received a copy to evaluate and will be giving it the gears this coming week. I will try to post any findings or observances this week. At first glance, it looks like Insider Software has managed to address a lot of niggly little annoyances that were on my list....

Stay tuned.
</quote>

thanks grant -- looking forward to it.

any more opinions for users? i think i may just upgrade but would like to hear what people think first if possible!

Well... before switching to any new font manager (currently stick to Font Reserve mixed with a bit of Fontbook), I prefer to wait Tiger, the Fontbook is quite very ok, and I presume a version 2 can be even better.

I think the new version was mostly so Insider could split the font-sharing features into a separate, more expensive product. That's fine with me, as I wasn't using the sharing features, but it doesn't really feel like a major upgrade.

That said, the new overlay window for auto-activation is indeed nice, and the upgrade is transparent. The new filtering capabilities are nice, but the GUI is still pretty sluggish in dealing with large collections, and the text preview capabilities aren't as nice as FontReserve's.

I have noticed some oddities: I recently imported a batch of fonts into FontAgent Pro, and it only shows one face from each family in the FAP list, but most of the faces are available in applications (one or two are missing, for reasons I can't fathom). Also, FAP still has some problems with corrupt / old fonts.

All in all, it's a good incremental upgrade, but nothing amazingly flashy. I'm glad I made the switch to FAP from FontReserve, but font management still has a ways to go on Mac OS X.

Does FAP still insist on either moving or copying all your font files, messing with the careful organisation you may already have done with the Finder? That was the main thing that made me stay with the far from perfect Suitcase X11.

I'm confused as to why the copying of your collection is a concern.
Are you really that pressed for storage space? Or is there some other issue?

To answer your question, Danny, yes, FontAgent Pro still wants to make its own copies of your fonts for its library. That's a pretty key feature of FAP, and one I don't see changing any time soon.

I have three font folders: one "master" folder, that has all my collated and organized fonts; the FontReserve Library (I used to use FontReserve, but eventually got frustrated with its klunkiness); and the FontAgent Pro library. Until recently, I kept all my fonts in both FontAgent and FontReserve, but I'm about to pull the trigger on that arrangement, both because FAP and FontReserve groan under the weight of 16,754 fonts, and also because the number of fonts I have, period, is about to drop precipitously as I get rid of all the fonts I don't have a documented license for. I've decided it makes more sense, anyway, to only bring fonts into the libraries when I actually need them.

Unless you're running a print shop, the size of an additional type library isn't going to be that big. I don't see why having an additional copy of your fonts on your hard drive is a problem. These days, all the major font-management programs allow you to set up a client-server structure, and font servers should have big chunks of disk anyway. Why do people object to FAP and FontReserve making copies of their fonts?

I prefer FAP to Extensis but Forrest's mention of over 16,000 fonts has prompted me to inquire if anyone else out there using FAP, is having problems with "corrupted" fonts slowing down (to a near cripple) all of their other programs. I have tried to load 3,000 to 5000 fonts into FAP, but I am told that when my programs start chugging, it is because of corrupted fonts, and that I must try to isolate the culprit(s) and remove them. Obviously, that is a near impossiblity to do, and so I have to keep removing thousands of fonts from FAP until the other programs get back to normal speed. The thing is, FAP is supposed to detect the corrupt fonts and not load them. I know some things are always going to slip by, but I just cannot get FAP to let me operate normally with over approximately 1500 fonts.

I do agree that it probably makes more sense to bring fonts in only when I need them, but one gets so busy that it would be nice to be able to keep 5000 in there for easy access, rather than a periodic, annoying clean up. Anyone have any advice on this? Thank you.

I spent several days consolidating my font collection, starting from a base I'd built inside FontReserve, and then run through FontAgent Pro and Font Doctor. Even after that, I have problems with corruption inside FontAgent Pro all the time. Apparently FAP 3 rewrites the font-checking / font-fixing info, and there's the new "Verify" command to kick out busted fonts, but I think there's just too many ways for fonts to get hosed, especially if they get passed hand to hand for a while. Another case for not using warezed fonts!

I don't like the idea of *moving* the files because I prefer to keep the organisation I've done in the Finder, and I don't like the idea of *copying* because I prefer knowing that the actual font files I've organised in the Finder are the ones being used. Disk space isn't really an issue.

I realise I might be being a little anal-retentive, but this behaviour just bugs me. There's definitely benefits to FAP (the fact that its auto-activation doesn't bring down InDesign being a pretty important one), so maybe I'll have to get over this.