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.
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.
Like (3)
Version 2.1.2
1 answer(s)
Dominik Levitsky
14 August 2017
Thanks for a constructive comment and criticism, it's always appreciated.
The beautiful things about interfaces is not their visual look and feel in the first place. The main thing about interfaces is the ease of usage and simplicity in understanding. Which is FontBase focused on: to be as simple as possible with a clean and modern look, without any other distractions. This is what most of the other apps are heavily lacking.
Regarding the other differences. Yes, most of the functionality of FontBase is the same as in many other alternatives. But two things are different: FontBase is much much faster then other apps and is free. We wanted to create a product that offers same functionality as most paid apps, but is free and accessible to every designer, even for the beginners. And we have that most apps don't have: really great speed even with thousands of fonts.
And last, most commercial apps are heavyweight and can't allow themselves to make some drastic changes in the interface or experiment with some features. We can do that, though. We want to introduce new cool features that can be really useful for everyone.. Right now we have the core product done. The development will not stop and from here it will only get better.
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? :)
Like (2)
Version 2.0.2
1 answer(s)
frans-3
13 August 2017
No it does not. Start any program, then activate a font. Check if you can see the new activated font and use in in the app (Text Edit or InDesign or whatever). It is not there. Quit the apps like Text Edit or InDesign, restart again and check again for the font: not there. In other words: It does NOT work at all, at least not under Sierra 10.13.x (tried in Dutch and UK versions of Sierra)
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.
Like (1)
Version 2.0.2
5 answer(s)
Ervins Strauhmanis
26 July 2017
HI frans-3! Thanks for sharing your experience! If there's an extra time on your hands, I am sure everyone would be thankful to you if you were to report this bug to the developer. I'm sure it wasn't a developers intention to frustrate anyone with a non-working app, and apps, especially indie apps like this that are given away for free, would benefit from user reports to iron-out bugs. Thanks for your time frans-3!
Like (1)
frans-3
26 July 2017
I already contacted the developer yesterday, they answered: "Well, we are still in development, and there are still some bugs, including the one you mentioned. We are working hard on implementing fixes and new features also."
Still, releasing font manager that has a bug that... does not manage fonts? Hmm...
Like
frans-3
26 July 2017
It is also available under Windows, I tried it there: there it activates and deactivates BUT it has a Trojan virus in it! It was disabled by my Virus scanner...(!!)
Like
Ervins Strauhmanis
26 July 2017
Thank you for your comments frans-3! Hopefully the app will improve in future, and hopefully that virus alert is a false positive that the developer would try to fix.
Like
doomcross1
12 August 2017
Seems to work fine for me. Have you updated your OS lately? Maybe you have some other conflicting font managers installed?
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Read 14 FontBase User Reviews
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The beautiful things about interfaces is not their visual look and feel in the first place. The main thing about interfaces is the ease of usage and simplicity in understanding. Which is FontBase focused on: to be as simple as possible with a clean and modern look, without any other distractions. This is what most of the other apps are heavily lacking.
Regarding the other differences. Yes, most of the functionality of FontBase is the same as in many other alternatives. But two things are different: FontBase is much much faster then other apps and is free. We wanted to create a product that offers same functionality as most paid apps, but is free and accessible to every designer, even for the beginners. And we have that most apps don't have: really great speed even with thousands of fonts.
And last, most commercial apps are heavyweight and can't allow themselves to make some drastic changes in the interface or experiment with some features. We can do that, though. We want to introduce new cool features that can be really useful for everyone.. Right now we have the core product done. The development will not stop and from here it will only get better.
Still, releasing font manager that has a bug that... does not manage fonts? Hmm...