Hi,
I “recently” got MainType and after my initial cataloging, tagging etc I have a bunch of questions, issues and feature requests. I’ll put it all into this post since they are partly depended – I hope this is ok.
First off, let me explain what I did because I think it impacts/explains some of my points later on.
I’m on a decent PC (Windows 11, 128 Gb RAM, 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-12700K 3.60 GHz and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070; MainType as well as the vault and cache are on a fast SSD which has only Windows & my programs not my data files) and had approx. 12000 fonts installed. Yes, I know, that’s way to many installed fonts which is why I finally gave in and decided to get a management tool and “clean up”. After installing MainType (version 12 Professional then), it had all those fonts in the library already since they were all active on my system.
Then I went to work and started going through them and tagging them, adding them to various virtual groups and uninstalling most (but keeping them in the library obviously). That process took a few months in the end.
What I also did along the way, was ~fixing~ a lot of fonts. It always annoyed me to no end, that many fonts did not install as proper font family but as individual fonts. I also had a bunch of fonts which had installation or other issues… Determined to get it all perfect, I also got TransType 4 and the home edition of FontCreator 15. I’m not a font creator but I learned a few things, esp about proper naming to fix my existing fonts too. So a good share of the fonts had to be uninstalled and then a new, fixed version reinstalled; because I had a learning curve, sometimes that uninstalling and installing of a new version happened a few times until it was right. However, once I had a proper version, I’ve also removed the old version(s) from the library/vault. Ie. now, I only have a single version of each font installed and/or in the library/vault.
Here are my issues/questions/requests:
1) Performance of the vault
When I first installed it, the library loaded waaaay faster. It was ok back then but now after I tagged everything and installed/uninstalled/removed from vault repeatedly loading of my library takes 3:45 to 4:01 minutes (I’ve stopped it a few times). That’s just too long. I’ve then upgraded to version 13 (which came out while I was doing my initial tagging etc so I waited with the install until I was finished). But that didn’t help either. Esp since I have to re-load the library every time after I use a group or a search again, ie it’s not just when I start the program. Search also takes too long now (after the first from a fully loaded library).
I’ve seen other posts about uninstalling and reinstalling but does that mean, I can still import a backup afterwards? Because it’s not workable for me to have to collect all my fonts from many different places (I don’t have them in a neat directory I could upload) and also re-doing assignments of my virtual groups even if I can import tags. That would be basically doing the entire process all over again.
That so far is my biggest problem. Because as great it was at first and I like the functionality overall, the performance regression of the database/vault is a big hindrance now. A tool or feature for reindexing or cleaning up of the database is badly needed imo. Installing/Uninstalling of fonts in the library still goes fast but adding/removing fonts from the library/vault is equally slow.
2) Usability issue with groups
This is related to the above in a way that it’s incredibly time consuming. As I mentioned, I use also vitual groups. Adding fonts to them is easy but changing or removing from from groups requires loading them (afaik) which is really a bummer. Sometimes I change my mind or dropped a font into the wrong group and just to remove it, I have to load that group, remove the font from it and then load eg the library again. Esp in light of my #1 issue, this simple task can take minutes. As another usage example, once I use a font in certain templates, as part of my process I “have to” move the font from 2 or 3 virtual groups to 2 or 3 other virtual groups… because of all the loading required, it can take literal 5-10 minutes for that simple thing.
A mechanism, similar to tags, where you can eg right click and see which group a font belongs to and then change/deactivate from the font without having to load a group first would be a massive improvement.
3) Freezing of the main font panel when scrolling past certain fonts
After some investigation/testing I found the cause and a workaround for it but I think it’s a bug.
When I initially tried to scroll through my font list (with previews on), at certain points the entire program froze. And not just stutter a bit but “hey, how about you go and have a nice cup of coffee while I try to scroll by this font” freeze.
Turns out this happens with bigger/complex fonts with TrueType outlines. The fix is to convert the fonts to OTF PostScript outlines and then it’s no issue at all, although the fonts are still big. While it was not the font which caused the biggest issues for me, try downloading the Rubik headline fonts from Google (https://fonts.google.com/?query=rubik). Can’t remember which one was the best example but they should at least show the effect. Install them and try to scroll by in case you’re looking for a font to reproduce it. Then convert them and you should see the issue being gone.
4) Preview of SVG/Color fonts
I’m not very family with SVG fonts but I know that across all my SVG fonts, I have some fonts displaying in black in the preview, color in the sample panel and black in the glyps panel to nothing (literally empty) in the preview, sample & glyphs panel and all kinds of variations in between.
I can live with not having them displayed in color in MainType but I do like to see ~something~.
Question (which is partly a FontCreator question I guess but it’s about MainType in the end): how do I need to save/export an SVG font in FontCreator/in general so it will show a preview in the various panels like many but not all of my SVG fonts do?
5) Display of certain variable fonts in the preview
I noticed that some variable fonts have a totally messed up preview, mostly the letters overlap each other and make it impossible to see anything than a black blob. Sample & glyphs panel are fine. It happens only to a small percentage of my variable fonts so it’s not the biggest issue but it would be still better to have a proper display of them. One of the font this happens to is eg Scale VF from PS Type (you could install the font from Adobe Fonts locally to see the effect).
6) Installation of some variable fonts trigger registry issues
Some variable fonts (like PT Sans from Google) trigger registration issues in MainType although they install and work just fine. If you fix the issue in MainType, the font gets uninstalled (which is obviously not a desired result in this case)
7) Minor cosmetic bug: the groups stop updating the the information panel
As I said above, I frequently use virtual groups; I also have the information panel open in my MainType layout. I noticed that for a while after opening MainType, the groups in the category section get updated when I add a font to one of the groups (good!) but after a while this just stops. To see which groups a font belongs to, I have to click away of the font onto a different font and then click on the font in question again to see all the groups it belongs to.
8) My personal #1 feature request: highlight relevant glyphs in the character panel when activating the OpenType feature in the sample panel
Let me explain: I use fonts a lot to create interesting headlines and simple word logos, so I’m heavily interested esp in the stylistic alternates and ligatures of a font. I’ve also realized during the last few months that many fonts designers are (let’s be nice and say) messy. Meaning, the character panel of many (most?) fonts is not very organized or consistent. This makes spotting the various OpenType features very difficult. When I click on an OpenType feature in the sample panel (these options are great btw) I can see some of it applied to the sample text but usually it only covers some of it or might not even be visible (because eg the sample text does not include a ligature combo). Or, there are multiple alternatives for a single character and not ideally coded with multiple style sets.
So, to me, it would be my favorite feature enhancement if the glyphs affected by an OpenType feature, would be highlighted by a blue background or something when clicked on in the sample panel. So I can see eg all discretionary ligatures at once in the glyphs panel and not just the ones which happen to be covered by the sample text. Basically I want to see all the stylistic alternates and ligatures highlighted so I can seem them easily, no matter where the designer decided to position them.
Would it be possible to add something like this in a future version? That would be a major improvement imo.
9) Enable collapsing sections in the character panel when in character mode
Along the lines of #8, it would also be nice if you could collapse certain sections when you look at the panel in character mode. Obviously all the different language sections are important but I would assume that most people focused only on certain parts. So it would be nice to hide some extended language sections. This isn’t critical but would be nice to have.
10) Multiple Column Display of Tags
I don’t know about other users but my list of tags is long so when I tag fonts, I always have to do lots of scrolling. Would be way more efficient for me if I could see more tags at once in the tags panel, eg through multiple columns. I would be a very welcome enhancement.
11) Search/filter font families with x+ fonts
It’s a question but I suspect it might not be possible yet. How can I search for fonts which have a minimum (or maximum) number of fonts in the family? I often want to search for fonts with 4+ styles but I couldn’t figure out how so far.
I’m sure I’ll have more questions in the future and sorry for the novel but I hope it’s a bit helpful too.
Thanks in advance for any help or feedback.
Claudia
