You Control: Fonts for Mac1.3.1

Still works with these design apps in 10.5: InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, QuarkXPress 8.1, FreeHand MX and RapidWeaver 4. Also in text editing apps (Bean, Textedit, etc.) but not NeoOffice.

Works very well with supported apps (only selected Carbon apps). Must be located in main "/Applications" folder, though. I find it useful even in Carbon apps that it doesn't support since its menu is globally available and shows previews of all fonts in their actual typeface (in all styles), and in multiple sizes. Its not a Haxie (which have caused me MANY problems in the past) and has been very stable and reliable for me.

WARNING: PHONES HOME. Also, it doesn't seem to do anything that FontCard doesn't, so ... why bother?

Despite claims that this app will work with Adobe InDesign CS, Photoshop CS, Adobe Illustrator CS and Quark 6, all of which we have at work, it would only work with Illustrator on my Mac. Having a readily-available WYSIWYG view of fonts is nice, but it would be much nicer if one could change fonts in the various apps through the YouControlFonts menu as promised.

Unsanity's FontCard has been completely rewritten and is far superior to this app for only $17--Fonts is now $29.95, not $19.95 as listed here and once was. Fonts is not as nice in the GUI department and works here and there.

All it does here is: Host Name: shanghai.lan Date/Time: 2004-07-27 22:04:48 +0200 OS Version: 10.3.4 (Build 7H63) Report Version: 2 Command: You Control Fonts Path: /Users/silverdr/Desktop/You Control Fonts.app/Contents/MacOS/You Control Fonts Version: 1.0.1 (1.0.1) PID: 4760 Thread: 0 Exception: EXC_BREAKPOINT (0x0006) Code[0]: 0x00000001 Code[1]: 0x90a5c740 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 com.apple.Foundation 0x90a5c740 _NSRaiseError + 0xf8 1 com.apple.AppKit 0x92f5b634 -[NSApplication runModalForWindow:] + 0xf8 2 PhoenixFramework 0x40009b88 +[YSRegCtlr regNib:regMode:] + 0x74 3 PhoenixFramework 0x40009bec +[YSRegCtlr regStartMode:] + 0x30 4 ...yousoftware.youcontrolfonts 0x0000bea4 0x1000 + 0xaea4 5 ...yousoftware.youcontrolfonts 0x0000c5fc 0x1000 + 0xb5fc 6 com.apple.AppKit 0x92dfd570 -[NSApplication run] + 0x74 7 com.apple.AppKit 0x92eb9b80 NSApplicationMain + 0x1d0 8 ...yousoftware.youcontrolfonts 0x0000a724 0x1000 + 0x9724 9 dyld 0x8fe1a558 _dyld_start + 0x64 Thread 1: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900074c8 mach_msg_trap + 0x8 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007018 mach_msg + 0x38 2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90191790 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x350 3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90195f1c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148 [...] and so on...

This application controls fonts for a VERY limited number of applications (not even all Cocoa apps). It's also what I'd call buggy: the font menu it places in your Menu Bar does not reappear after my machine sleeps (OS 10.3.4, new PB), requiring launching the app to reinstall the menu. Also, while You claims the app supports TextEdit, it does not on my machine. Also, tech support doesn't seem to be particularly responsive. Because of the limited app support and inconsistent behavior, I'll give this app 2 stars. If You fixes it to work with apps like FileMaker Pro 7, AppleWorks, Deneba Canvas 8 or 9, and other apps, and fixes the bugs, it would be a 4 star app in my book.

For those who work with Flash MX and have many fonts this application is a savior. Flash MX (6) is incredibly slow at selecting fonts from the text pallete, being able to use YCF to select and change fonts is much quicker. This is on a Dual 2.0 G5 with 1.5GB of Ram and about 500 fonts.

It is more expensive than Unsanity's FontCard. Is awfully slow and has a very low quality font smoothing for the menu. On the good side, it does not need APE to work (though I think it should be a control panel).

Works as promised with all true Cocoa apps, but users of earlier versions of Adobe apps (pre-CS) will be S.O.L. as expected. It's nice to have a global, consistently placed font menu. It works more reliably than Unsanity's FontCard, but supports fewer apps.