VisualFont allows you to browse libraries of TrueType or bitmapped fonts that can be easily viewed, printed, listed or duplicated.
Quick Start (What's new with version 2.5)
If you are already familiar with VisualFont, here are some news (if you are not, please read the manual):
• The sample text can now be displayed using multiple lines
• Printing features have been greatly improved, and provide more settings (the most useful is resolution setting)
• Before accessing your fonts, the folder provided as input has to be searched, in order to have a clean font library, and the possibility of searching subfolders. The search can be stopped and resumed later.
• The recent menu is now built using "VisualFont Cache Folder" (of system folder's "Preferences" folder) where VisualFont stores the search results.
• Registered users get a new code
• A manual has been created for providing help.
Limitations of the Demo version
VisualFont, in its demo version, can be launched five times. Then if you decide to keep it, follow the instruction in the next section. After registering through Kagi, a registration code will be sent to you that you can use to unlock the software. If you do not have an email address, please enter your complete postal address including what country you live, and consider selecting the Postcard Receipt so that Kagi can inform you of your registration code. Kagi transmits the registration codes via email and paid postcard receipt only.
If you find that five times is not enough, just send me an email and I will give you the simple instructions for getting five more tries.
Registration
VisualFont is shareware and has the following pricing.
$20 for one single-user license
$200 for one site license which covers all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software, and the multiple users do not have to register separately.
Paying for VisualFont is fairly simple. Open the Register program that accompanies. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site license). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. More specifics on the Register program to follow. Kagi handles my payment processing.
Online registration is also available (see next section).
If paying with Credit Card, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-UPR
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical. If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment. Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end. Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed. Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
Online Registration
You can register VisualFont online, on Kagi's payment website http://order.kagi.com/?UPR or, for a secure connection, http://order.kagi.com/?UPR&S
System requirements
Needs Power Macintosh.
Needs the Appearance Manager, provided on a standard system 8 or 9 configuration. However, Appearance Manager can also be installed on system 7. The Appearance Manager version provided with system 8.5 brings added useful features.
This application has been tested on PowerMacintosh 7200, PowerMacintosh 8600, PowerMacintosh G3, running MacOS 8.0, 8.0.1, 8.1, 8.5, 8.5.1, 8.6, 9.0.
Contact the author
If you find a bug, please, please report it to me via email jb.quenot@kagi.com it is very important that each problem is reported, in order for next versions to get perfect.
I would also appreciate if you could tell me about the things you don't like (and eventually the things you like).
VisualFont's latest version is available at http://www.esiee.fr/~quenotj/Ecran-Total
Revision History
Version 2.5 (05/11/99)
• clicking on the grow icon used to resize the window to its minimal size. FIXED.
• typing digits on the point size's edit text could lead to unexpected results, like erase preferences. FIXED.
• text is displayed using multiple lines. The Preferences dialog has been redesigned for this purpose.
• added options in printing job dialog for specifying printing mode, resolution, whether to print all fonts contained in a file, whether to use only activated fonts
• new registration system
• added registration name in the about box
• added menu item "View selected fonts"
• fixed a nasty bug that could sometimes prevent the user from switching back to VF after notification message.
• aliases are now resolved when dropped on VF
• redesigned prefs with tabs
• created the font search engine to avoid displaying files other than fonts, and fonts other than requested
• new icon...
• new alerts
Version 2.0 (12/07/99)
• Major changes. Restricted to PowerMacintosh for time purposes. Keeping compatibility with 68k macs begins to be quite boring. Migrated to Appearance Manager, because it offers really good features for the visual interface, and it can be
installed on any PowerMacintosh.
• Added NavigationServices. Slower, but better.
• Font rendering engine and font analyzing engine completely rewritten.
• Zooming and moving completely rewritten
• Added a special cursor with minus sign when zooming out with option key
• Error handling rewritten, with Notification Manager services for alerting the user whenever a problem occurs and the application is in background.
• Added registration system
• deleted all messages that could appear with this ugly green color and changed them to explicit icons.
• Added font style (bold, italic, outline)
• Added drag & drop possibilities for the download folder and the file where to store selection.
• Added an exact point size for displaying the font
• Forgot the notion of delay between fonts in the same file, changed it to little arrows that skip from one font to another.
• Added font type, and font size for bitmap fonts when resizing is requested.
• Added a "recent" menu with corresponding icons
• Changed the message in the "About VisualFont" dialog
• Added printing features
• I made the window resizeable
• Added functions to show folder and font in the Finder
• Added zoom factor and default point size in the prefs
• all key bindings are now explicitly indicated in the menus, thanks to the new MacOS 8 Menu Manager
• Changed the window title to the folder's name
• Added the folder's icon in the window title
• Added an exhaustive support of help balloons
• Changed my copy resource fork routine to MoreFiles's FSpFileCopy
Version 1.05 (04/06/98)
• I used PLStringFuncs.c for pascal strings handling, but it doesn't worked properly on 68k Macs (problem with Command-Up and Command-Down and even drag&drop onto the Finder on version 1.04) so I used PLStringFuncs.glue.lib instead. And now, it does work! A nasty bug...
• I re-wrote the routine for copying files resource forks, but with a mistake however. This caused VF to crash when dropping fonts onto the Finder or when downloading fonts. This bug has been reported by email on 02/06/98.
Version 1.04 (29/05/98)
• fixed a bug that prevented the user from making the menu choice "Scan a folder" in version 1.03
• fixed a bug that could cause VF to move the window in the upper left corner at launch time.
Version 1.03 (28/05/98)
• message font (MatrixSSK) from bold to plain
• modification of this documentation (In the "legal stuff" section, it was written "freeware" !).
• bug fix: sometimes, the extra informations could not be displayed and only lead to a single beep. This problem occured because the offscreen graphics used to display the font was installed in the app's heap. Now, I always use temporary memory for displaying the font. When temporary memory is low, I use the app's memory.
• bug fix: when a download had been made, and then you asked for a new scan, VF still asked if you wanted to download the files, and also asked for a folder at the next download.
• changed the key-binding for scanning a new folder from Cmd-S (like "Scan") to Cmd-O (like "Open") because Cmd-S usually means "Save".
• fixed a bug that prevented the application from reading the preferences file. I didn't catch it because the prefs file on my disk had been created quite one year ago. I first noticed the problem yesterday (16/05/98) as I was surfing the Internet on another mac: after having searched and downloaded VisualFont at www.zdnet.com/mac/download.html, I tried it, and I saw bad error messages. This is a perfect example of a bug that could be reported by the users (you!), but nobody told me.
Version 1.02
The first time I sent VisualFont to these shareware servers, I forgot this documentation, so version 1.02 consisted of the program and the documentation whereas version 1.01 did not include it.
Version 1.01 (21/01/98)
The first time I sent VisualFont was to MacWorld (zdnet.com), where it was released as version 1.0. Then I sent it to the InfoMac archives, where it appears under version 1.01 (I never understood why).
You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of VisualFont is at your exclusive risk. VisualFont, any related files and documentation are provided “AS IS” and without any warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
