Well, I really wanted to like it. All the reviews told me "it's free & there are soooo many cool options".
First of all, its incredibly aggressive about getting a subscription. There are popups, there is a button displayed on the main screen (yes, you will CONSTANTLY be reminded to subscribe) and if you want to use the glyph-feature (you should be able to copy any glyph from there)... well you see 2 lines (!) of glyphs, the rest is hidden behind a subscription message. I would not mind, if I just can't copy all of them, but at least let me SEE all glyphs.
The UI is not good, but not bad either. Just normal, nothing out of the ordinary. A list of fonts and you can adapt the size. But that's it. That's all there is for me.
I understand there went much work into it and I would not mind, if they were honest about their feature set and not trying to lure you into subscribing. But if you are looking for a free font manager, there are better options out there...
I've just had several frustrating days with this.
I dragged several thousand fonts over a few days into the app and only a fraction of them appear. It seems to ignore a fair chunk of them without any notifcation.
The website is pretty scant on information like; what font formats does it support?; is there a limit to how many fonts can be added, etc.?
I would consider upgrading to the subscription if it worked better with the basics.
"By default, FontBase recognizes only your system installed fonts. So your user fonts on Mac will be not displayed by default."
This is a deal breaker for me, I only want the fonts installed which are absolutely required by the system. I am never going to put 25.000+ fonts in the user system font folder. Looks very promising otherwise.
There where I few fonts I brought in form an external attached drive. I created a new folder on my main HD and put some Fonts in there, then I added that to FontBase. They DO work. So only fonts on the startup disk can be activated and deactivated... Why??? Large collections of fonts are kept on my external drive and that I want to keep that way...
Unlocks features only after enrolling for a subscription. If you want some love from your users don't do this. The subscription model is nasty and unethical and completely inappropriate for little tools like this of which some people use dozens. If you want money for it, sell it the normal way, and that is perfectly fine.
Basic features look nice though I would wish there was a very quick and easy way to delete fonts when browsing through them.
I'm with B-Jefferson, this app is not beautiful. They went out of their way to move the window controls to the wrong side. This is a Mac app, it should have at least *some* of the Mac standards.
Well, I lied. It's not a Mac app, it uses Electron, so it's a web-app wrapped in a processor hog.
Don't use it.
"For designers"
Hell, this app needs a designer.
What's beautiful about a flat, black and white interface? Generally, when an app is cross-platform a decent UI is too much to expect. Design has to fit the lowest common denominator—as it appears to do here. And check out the web site. The animation runs so fast it's impossible to tell what's being demonstrated. The video here on MacUpdate doesn't run at all.
Apple's native Font Book will activate and deactivate fonts. You can create collections with it. And it previews fonts just fine. Admittedly the UI is bare bones, but it gets the job done. What Font Book offers that FontBase does not is a list of fonts. The font list and the preview window are available side-by-side. Font Book flags duplicate fonts and enables you to choose which copy you want to remove. As well it can validate fonts, checking them for corruption.
There are several modestly priced—and some not so modestly priced—font managers out there. I can't imagine why the developer thinks we need another one, or what he imagines he can offer that others don't. Sorry to be so negative, but FontBase just seems to duplicate what's already been done. That said, the Windows and Linux versions might be useful. But the Mac version is less capable than even Apple's built-in font manager.
A great replacement for FontCase, if you loved that. I tried many different font managers and really, FontBase has all of the features of a paid font manager. So why to pay more? The preview page is also a good idea. The thing that is really missing is a character map support and a specimen page. Hope to see that in next updates. Cheers.
I have no idea who wrote the reviews saying it works, but still the latest version (2.1.x) simply does not work in at least Sierra: nothing gets activated, not in OS X apps (like TextEdit) nor in apps like Adobe InDesign etc. Do not believe the reviews that say otherwise: IT DOES NOT WORK...
Works just as promised! Automatically synchronises changes in the added folders, activation works like a charm (this thing even deactivates fonts when it shuts down and reactivates them when you open the application next time!). What else could you ask for? :)
This is a great alternative for the expensive font managers! Works unexpectedly fast, would not even think, that it could work that fast. Lacking some of the pro features, I guess. But you have all you need for good and fast font management. And the UI is really simple to use and looks great!
This is an easy one: simply does not work! Tried it, activated some fonts I added, it says activated - but the fonts do not show up in any application, not even after restarting an application.It is free, yes, but as it does nothing at all it has no use.
