• Add keyboards for Australia, Canada (Fr, ISO, CSA), Denmark and Norway
• Add Flag keyboard Icon with contextual menu
• Add a style menu, to select Bold, Italic and Underline styles
• Add an item “Other…” to the size menu to select any size between 1 and 256 points
• Add an item “Close” to File Menu.
• Add several shortcuts to switch between tabs, fonts, sizes, characters
• Smart Font Name Option (e.g., B Helvetica Bold follows Helvetica Regular, when switching between fonts with keys)
• Add keystrokes for low ASCII characters.
Change:
• The font selector now always shows all characters, whatever the option “Show control characters” is.
• ASCII 127 and 256 have been removed from standard display (in first tab).
• Shortcuts to select the previous or next char in the char selector are now <alt><LeftArrow> and <alt><RightArrow>
Bugs fixed:
• Several display bugs
• Keystrokes <space> for UK and Netherlands keyboards.
• FontBuddy Logo is now Kaleidoscope savvy.
What is it?
FontBuddy is a Font Viewer. It shows all characters of any installed font. It also gives keystroke(s) to access special characters. It is easy to use, quick, optimized for on screen use, and MacOS 8.5 savvy. Moreover, FontBuddy supports different keyboards (US, France, UK, Germany,…); if yours is missing, ask me.
What can FontBuddy do?
The only aim of FontBuddy is to show, on screen, all the characters of a font. To do this, FontBuddy window is divided in three tabs:
• In the first tab, you can see all chars of the selected font, at the selected size. Here, you can copy characters and paste them in others documents. If you type a character on the keyboard, then it is display in the second tab.
• In the second tab, you can browse through characters, one by one. For each character, you get its ASCII code, its PostScript name, and the keystroke(s) to get it. To select a character, just type it on the keyboard. You can also select its ascii code with the scroll bar. A last solution, is to select the character in the first tab, then to switch to the second tab.
•The third tab displays a (long) sample text. You can change this text and save it as the default sample text.
• There is also a last Tab that contains user's options (see below).
How much does it cost?
FontBuddy is distributed as Shareware. You can try it for one month. If you want to continue to use it, you should pay the shareware fee : a License for a single user costs $10, a Site License costs $50, a WorldWide License costs $100.
You can pay with KAGI registration system: open the Register program that accompanies FontBuddy, then follow the instructions.
When you pay, I will send you a registration code, to remove the timer at launching.
System Requirements
FontBuddy should run on any Power Macintosh under MacOS 7.5 or greater. If you need a 68 K version, ask me.
Contact
You can contact the author by email (vjalby@kagi.com), or by mail (Vincent Jalby, 29 rue du Chichauvaud, 87000 Limoges, France. To find the latest version of FontBuddy, go to http://perso.wanadoo.fr/vjalby/fb/
Keyboard Shortcuts
Use the <ctrl><tab> key to switch to the next tab and the <shift><ctrl><tab> key to switch to the previous tab.
Use <ctrl><LeftArrow> or <ctrl><RightArrow> to select the previous or the next font.
Use <ctrl><DownArrow> or <ctrl><UpArrow> to select the previous or the next font size.
Use <ctrl><shift><DownArrow> or <ctrl><shift><UpArrow> to decrease or increase the font size by 1 point.
In the second tab:
• use <alt><LeftArrow> or <alt><RightArrow> to select the previous or the next char.
• use <alt><UpArrow> or <alt><DownArrow> to select the first char (ASCII 1) or the last char (ASCII 256)
In the first two tabs, any character typed on the keyboard, will switch to Font Selector Tab, then select the character.
Preferences (Options Tab)
The preferences and default settings of FontBuddy can be set up in the Options tab.
• Show control characters: the Font Chars Tab will show all 256 ASCII characters of a font. Otherwise, first (ASCII 1 to 32), 127 and 256 characters are not displayed.
• Use smart font switching (at restart): switching between fonts with keyboard, or with the Previous font or Next font menu items, will select the next/previous font in alphabetic order. However, some Postscript fonts have style prefixes like B, BI, N,… Thus, e.g., B Helvetica Bold will be between AvantGarde and Bookman. The option "Use smart font switching" will try to correct this. Note that the Font menu is left unchanged.
• Keyboard: select here the keyboard you use. It will modify the keystrokes given in the Char Selector tab.
• Fonts & Window current setup: Here you can define the default settings when FontBuddy is launched: first check the settings you want to save (Window size and position, font and sizes, Font Sample Text), then click Save. The next time you launch FontBuddy, it will remember the settings you was using at this time. [The Default push button will reset the selected settings to FontBuddy build-in settings.]
Version History
Version 1.0 [1999/03/16] First public release
Version 1.1 [1999/04/01]
• Add Keystrokes for low ASCII characters.
• Correct Keystroke <space> for UK and Netherlands keyboards.
• Add keyboards for Australia, Canada (Fr, ISO, CSA), Denmark and Norway
• Add Flag Keyboard Icon with popup menu
• Add Smart Font Name Option
• Add Next font/Previous font items in Font Menu
• FontBuddy Logo is now Kaleidoscope savvy.
• Add a style menu
• Change Low Ascii Option to Control Characters.
• Remove ASCII 127 and 256 from standard display.
• Shortcuts to switch between tabs, fonts, sizes.
• Size Menu Item “Other…” added
• MenuItem File Close added.
• The font selector now always shows all characters, whatever the option “Show control characters” is.
Legal Stuff
Use this software, FontBuddy, at your own risk. The author, Vincent Jalby, makes no claims as to the fitness of this software, FontBuddy, for any particular purpose. There is no warranties, expressed or implied.
This application has been build using RealBasic 1.1.1 from RealSoftware. For more information, check out http://www.realsoftware.com/.
