Using MainType for Development

[Mike Thompson]

I'm aware that MainType v4 has been designed for management of fonts but hope that I can also fit
it into my development process. Currently I use MainType v2. I'm quite willing to change my procedures
to take advantage of the new product.
All my work is done in two directories:
TrueType/_current
OpenType/_current
At least every day I make a backup into directories like
TrueType/_20110920
OpenType/_20110920
This means that the files in the current directories are constantly changing. I use the Browse window
to look at them, load, unload and delete. Using the Sample and Zoom panels is very valuable.
I have hundreds (maybe thousands) of files on my machine with the SAME name.
I enjoy the fact that MainType can delete a font even when Vista "thinks" erroneously that the font is in use.

In the Font List panel, I have no way of distinguishing the fonts I'm developing - either by font name e.g,
"shuneetDEV_bold_smaller_nikud.ttf" or by location " TrueType/_20110920c". They all look the same!

Can anyone suggest a good approach to using MainTypeV4 for development.
Mike

[Erwin Denissen]

Well, good question Mike!

I almost had an answer ready to post, but suddenly realized it isn't possible

During the development of MainType 4 we used to have a Date Modified column, but we replaced it with Date Added. I think we should put it back pretty soon, as it would be an excellent way to distinguish the modified versions of your fonts.

That said, within MainType 4 there are numerous ways to manage your fonts. For now the Date Added and the Version columns might be a good start.

Expect to see the Date Modified column in the next upcoming release. We'll probably make it available next Thursday.

In general (and in your case to make it work) I recommend you keep "Update Modified DateTime field" enabled within FontCreator. That way you always know for sure in what order you modified a font.

fontcreatorsettings.png (65.06 KiB) Viewed 5748 times

[Mike Thompson]

Thanks for offering to add Date Modified to the List Window.
HOWEVER for the font I am working on today I now have 8 versions in that window and they all look the same!

I distinguish these versions by file name and directory location but such information is not shown in the window. Some of them are .tty and some are .otf but that is not shown either.

I would like to define two groups DEV_TrueType and DEV_OpenType. Is there a way of assigning these groups each to its own file system directory?
Mike

[Erwin Denissen]

I'm afraid that is not possible. Mainly because if two fonts are 100% equal, we will detect this, and will show it only once. Thus a font is unique in our system based on the actual binary resource, and not by folder or file name.

Some of them are .tty and some are .otf but that is not shown either.

What is the difference between these?

[Mike Thompson]

"Some of them are .tty and some are .otf but that is not shown either."

The way I do the development work, the .tty files contain no OT tables so they are always different
from the .otf in terms of their binary code. I like to try to make the .tty fonts as perfect as possible and then
use the VOLT programming to fix things that can't be done in Font Creator.

Mike

[Erwin Denissen]

Would it help if we also include a file size column?

If not, can you think of a way that would fit within the MT4 approach?