A Search Tool?

We will move topics to this forum, once we've implemented the requested feature(s) and/or enhancement(s).
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

A Search Tool?

Post by kiwiburger »

First I just need to agree with all the great things people have said about Maintype, it is the most thoughtfully and elegantly designed Windows font manager ever.

What I find that I still need is a fast and easy way to search for a font by its name. The Maintype way of applying a filter to the fonts in view doesn't quite fulfil that need. Perhaps Maintype could add some Windows Explorer right-click-menu features: "Find Font" could open a search window to search for a font by font name or family name, or perhaps one or two other criteria, from the current folder or subfolders, without having to view all the fonts in Maintype. The result set could list the font name, filename and location, and give the option to load, install or open in Maintype (the folder could be opened in the browse tab with that font selected).

There could also be a "Maintype View" in the Maintype rt-click menu group, which opens the folder in Maintype if a folder is selected, or if a font is selected the folder opens in the browse tab with the font selected,. And perhaps also a "Load Font" or "Install Font" menu item.

As I know nothing at all about programming, I may be asking the nearly-impossible, which would explain why a font search feature has never been built into Windows before, but it would certainly be very useful.

Also, probably another difficult ask, is it possible to do plugins for popular graphics apps from Corel, Adobe, Macromedia, which will allow a missing font to load automatically when a document is opened?
pentool
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:11 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: A Search Tool?

Post by pentool »

kiwiburger wrote:What I find that I still need is a fast and easy way to search for a font by its name.
Nothing is easier than that.

1. In the "Fonts" panel click on the column that you want to base your search on. For example, if you click the "Font Family Name" column, your search will be based on that column, etc.
2. Based on your request, it implies that you already know the name of the font you are looking for (either file name, font family name, or whatever). So start typing the name of the font on the keyboard and the column will scroll and hilite the first name of the font found, based on the typed letters. The more character you type, the more precise the hit.
=LES=
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Post by kiwiburger »

Nothing is easier than that.

Easy enough but not fast, or exactly what I want to do. If I want to find all the fonts with "helvetica" in the name, on my system, by that methodology, I would need to go to browse, select the topmost folder, click subfolder view, wait for thousands of fonts to load into view, start typing "helvetica" and then only find the first font whose name begins with "helvetica". Or use the filter as I said before, but waiting for them to load first and then doing this process, does not, as I said before, entiirely fit with my expectation of "fast and easy".
pentool
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:11 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by pentool »

well, I'm just guessing that searching for Helvetica is just the same as searching for Helvetica. In other words, MT will still have to search through the selected folder and its subfolders to find all fonts that are named Helvetica. So what exactly will the difference be in speed?

And I'm just guessing that if someone have 300 fonts in different subfolders and all of them named "Helvetica" once you hit the "H" key which would jump to the first Helvetica, chances are the rest of the 299 will be right after the first - since they are all named ... Helvetica.

PS: I'm not arguing, I'm just saying.
=LES=
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Post by kiwiburger »

My point is not specific to the search term - helvetica is possibly a bad example as it is usually found at the beginning of the font name - possibly not always. But let's say the font name I'm trying to find contained the character string "gothic" - for example. I find your response, Pentool, maybe pedantic and perhaps missing the point of my request. Or maybe my language is not sufficiently clear.

If MT did not have to load all the font info into the viewer but only search the font headers I would expect it to be significantly faster.
pentool
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:11 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by pentool »

Sorry, didn't mean to "pick" on this issue. I guess sometimes I just talk too much... (should I say 'write'...)
=LES=
Wombat
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:34 am

Post by Wombat »

Kiwiburger Explorer is slow & can only search for file names

If you just want to find *.ttf
find them with program like

http://locate32.webhop.org/

It only finds file names as well but does it quick

Sigi
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Post by kiwiburger »

Thanks Wombat, I realise the Win Explorer search tool is slow and not what I want, which is why I thought an extra progam, maybe a MT enhancement could do this by searching out font files and finding font names in the headers of those font files. I would want something to search TT OT and T1 files so not interested in .ttf-only search tool. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: A Search Tool?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

kiwiburger wrote:First I just need to agree with all the great things people have said about Maintype, it is the most thoughtfully and elegantly designed Windows font manager ever.
Thanks :wink:
What I find that I still need is a fast and easy way to search for a font by its name.
I'll add it to the to-do list, but for now it has low priority. I might develop a stand-alone utility for this purpose in the future, but no promises made.
Also, probably another difficult ask, is it possible to do plugins for popular graphics apps from Corel, Adobe, Macromedia, which will allow a missing font to load automatically when a document is opened?
Mac supports such feature, but unfortunately Windows has no API for such feature. Maybe in Windows Vista... but don't count on it.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Re: A Search Tool?

Post by kiwiburger »

Also, probably another difficult ask, is it possible to do plugins for popular graphics apps from Corel, Adobe, Macromedia, which will allow a missing font to load automatically when a document is opened?
Mac supports such feature, but unfortunately Windows has no API for such feature. Maybe in Windows Vista... but don't count on it.
Bitstream Font Navigator (I know - who needs it) however did do this in Corel. How did they do that?
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Bitstream Font Navigator (I know - who needs it) however did do this in Corel. How did they do that?
I never heard of this, can you point me to some online documentation about this?
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
kiwiburger
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Post by kiwiburger »

Erwin Denissen wrote:
Bitstream Font Navigator (I know - who needs it) however did do this in Corel. How did they do that?
I never heard of this, can you point me to some online documentation about this?
Unfortunately there's not much left of it around - the product was discontinued by Bitstream, but was used in Corel Draw from ver. 8 through 12. I found a PDF of a review here:
http://www.signcraft.com/Downy116.pdf
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Thanks for the link. I've never seen or heard of any API that is available for Windows, so they probably got together and developed some special mechanism for this. What we need is a mechanism made available through the O.S. itself in order to make it work for all applications.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
FLEB
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:57 pm

Post by FLEB »

I think it was only integrated with CorelDRAW, probably through a plug-in. There isn't any way to wedge a program between an font request and the OS response on a Windows PC like there is in MacOS. The only thing I think would work would be an app-by-app plugin interface.
homunculus
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:55 am

Post by homunculus »

I second the request for a search-by-name-fragment feature, without having to display all the fonts first.

As far as auto-activation on Windows: Font Suitcase, the progeny of Font Reserve, can auto-activate fonts based on the contents of a document. I believe they do this via plugins for Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop.
Post Reply