FontStruct 2.0
News | Rob Meek (meek) | April 27th, 2010
Dear FontStructors old and new,
Today, FontShop and the FontStruct team are proud to present one of the most significant updates to our site since the service launched. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get straight to the new features.
New Feature: Brick Stacking
Some brave souls have been “stacking” (placing multiple bricks on a single grid square) for a long time. The long lost FontStructor “williaum” AKA will.i.ૐ first discovered a bug that made this esoteric technique possible, and pioneered its use.
Using brick stacking you can create new bricks which are not available in the existing brick palette. It’s a particularly useful technique when you are working on a low-resolution grid, and it can get you out of many a tight FontStructing corner. Here’s an example, stacked bricks in yellow:
Until now brick stacking has been counter-intuitive, involving all manner of heel-clicking, chanting and the burning of candles. Now we’ve added official support with the introduction of a “Stack” drawing mode. Go to the “Advanced” menu, then “Mode” then “Stack” and the pen tool turns into a stacking pen. You can start drawing and placing multiple bricks on single grid squares. Stacked bricks will appear in your “My Bricks” panel and can be used with any of the drawing tools like any other brick. You can stack up to 6 bricks on one brick square. Stacks can also be copied and pasted. It’s really easy and intuitive.
Note that FontStructions made using the old stacking technique should be unaffected by this change, but old-style brick stacks are not converted automatically to the new-style stacks. To continue working on older “stacked” FontStructions, you will need to start using the new technique.
New Feature: Composite Bricks
This is another, brand-new way to make custom bricks out of the existing ones. Use the selector tool to choose between two and four adjacent bricks. Then go to the “Advanced” Menu, then “Modify”, then “Make Composite”. A new composite brick built out of the selected bricks will appear in “My Bricks”. Switch to the pen tool and you can start using it like any other brick. This is a completely new technique and we’re really excited to see what you can do with it.
Note that the components of composite bricks, no matter how many you have selected, will always stretch to fit one single brick square. While this could be desirable, we may add an option later to pad a composite brick with white space to avoid such distortion. UPDATE: this feature has now been added.
New Feature: Rotation and Flipping
You can now rotate or flip selections, or entire glyphs, using the respective commands on the “Advanced” > “Modify” menu. I think once you’ve got the hang of the keyboard shortcuts, these new tools will really speed up your FontStructing.
New Feature: A Pipette Tool
This was a last minute addition. While testing the new features and watching “My Bricks” fill up with all sorts of new shapes, we realized it would be nice to speed up the process of switching from brick to brick. Often the brick you want is already right there on the paper so why search through the brick palettes for it, why not just pick it up? When using the pen, rectangle, or line-drawing tools, press “alt” (or the “command” key in most Mac browsers) and your cursor will turn into a pipette 
. Click on the brick you want, et voilá!
New Feature: Simple Drawing Mode
Traditionally repeated clicks on a single grid square have cycled through the “My Bricks” palette. This behavior isn’t always desirable, so while “Cycle” remains the default drawing mode, you can now switch to “Simple” using the “Advanced” > “Mode” > “Simple” menu command. In simple drawing mode you always just draw with the brick you have chosen. As for most things in the editor, there are keyboard shortcuts for quickly switching between this and the other drawing modes.
New Feature: Line and Rectangle Erasers
It’s always been handy that you can press the “shift” key when using the pen tool to access the eraser. Now this works for the rectangle and line tools as well. The rectangular eraser is a minor convenience (the eraser tool is always capable of clearing a rectangular area anyway). The line eraser on the other hand is something new, and could be handy for example when cutting a stencil version of an existing font, or perhaps when trying to create a scratchy, “distressed” effect. Here I’m slicing up intaglio‘s “ruffian“.
New Feature: Reorganize “My Bricks”
You can now drag-and-drop bricks into any order you wish in the “My Bricks” panel. For example, you can put the bricks you use most often in easy reach at the top of the panel. Remember that the number keys 1 to 9 can be used to select the first nine bricks in the palette. Because you can now reorder your bricks, you can use these keyboard shortcuts to greater effect.
Note that you can also now replace a brick in “My Bricks” by dragging and dropping another brick from “My Bricks” directly over it, thereby doing a global brick replace in your font. So be careful when reordering your bricks that you don’t accidentally do a global replacement. (But don’t worry if you do. You can undo it).
Optimization: Less Flash more speed
We’re making the interactive Flash previews on the gallery pages, user homepages and favorites listings, an optional feature. By default, you will (almost always) see images rather than Flash movies on these pages. (Note to existing users, you will probably need to sign-out and sign-in to see this in action).
This should make browsing FontStruct a lot faster and more comfortable, and will open up the site to users who don’t have the Flash plugin, including all of our iPhriends.
If you want to continue to use the interactive previews everywhere, you can opt to do so by going to “MyFontStruct”, “Settings” and then “More Settings”, and check the relevant box. Interactive Flash previews will still be shown by default on FontStruction homepages.
New Feature: Outline Mode
This feature is very useful for examining and deconstructing FontStructions, especially when stacked or composite bricks are involved. It’s on the “Advanced” > “View” menu. Select it and you will see your bricks drawn with an outline rather than a fill.
And a whole lot more
There are many, many more minor bug fixes and enhancements to the site, including
- The preview window, and the preview widget should now wrap text properly so words won’t break in the middle unless absolutely necessary.
- In the private “author” view of “My FontStruct”, the list of tags is now sorted alphabetically. Thanks for the suggestion Emilio.
- When you download cloned FontStructions, the font file meta-data should now fully credit the designers of the original and any intermediary fonts.
- Some deprecated keyboard shortcuts will no longer work. Long time FontStructors may need to watch out for this one. Many shortcuts which used to work with the shift key will no longer do so. So Shift+C will not do a copy. It’s just C. Please refer to the keyboard shortcuts reference.
- The FontStructor will finally remember your last zoom position from your last FontStructing session.
What’s Next?
FontShop is committed to keeping FontStruct a simple, enjoyable, and accessible modular design tool for typographical novices and experienced designers alike. Without compromising on ease-of-use, we will continue to add more features, and make it possible to create higher-quality, modular fonts. In short, we’re far from done yet.
That’s it!
Enjoy. There are a lot of changes. There are bound to be some teething problems. Please tell us what you think by commenting on this post, or tell us about any problems using the contact page.
Special thanks
To p2pnut and geneus1 who came forward and volunteered to test-drive the new features for this update, and to the entire FontStruct community for providing many of the ideas that went into this release.
FontStruction Credits
The rotation and flipping illustration features ILLUSIONora by noraermejo. The “Whoosh” illustration uses iphont by funk_king. The outlined “Q” is from DECOnoir by p2pnut
I feel dizzy but happy for all these new features (the composite brick opens wonderful possibilities). I’m looking forward to testing them in new and old FontStructions stored in my lab.
Thanks Rob (and thanks to the beta-testers) for your commitment!
– Em — April 27, 2010 #
The UI hasn’t changed much. It looks almost the same. But underneath the surface there is a plethora of new features. All very helpful, all very welcome improvements.
Brick stacking made easy: without any doubt this feature alone will make our FS life much easier. I used this technique quite often, even if it was a bit cumbersome. In fact, my Coccinella Two is based on brick stacking on industrial scale. You have no idea how many hours I’ve spent repeating the same steps again and again. Now, I would do it using another new feature:
Composite Bricks. We can’t even imagine how (tremendously) useful this feature will be. Pity, it does not preserve the original vector shapes the composite was made of, say, with using a particular filter setting; the composite reverts to the 1:1 setting. I hoped to make some useful bricks of steep angles this way.
Rotation and Flipping could save many hours of arduous labor for pattern designers.
And the list goes on. Great work, Rob! Big THANK YOU.
– Frodo7 — April 27, 2010 #
I knew that the Brick Stacking would be introduced as a official feature(Fontstruct staff loved and praised it). Also, all the other features rule! Finally we can make totally new bricks! I wonder how long it will take before we see the new features abused to the max.
– TomoAlien — April 27, 2010 #
It was quite an honour to be allowed to help (in a very small way) with Rob’s incredible new developments.
Mostly I just sat here expressing awe and delight at the wonders that unfolded before me.
As an inverterate brick stacker I am overjoyed by the ease with which this will be possible in future – also the composite brick facility.
The speed of opening Fonstruction pages is the answer to a dream for me (and I can only just start to imagine what funk_king will make of the ability to scroll through his many hundreds of designs)
Rotations; pipettes; outlines; reorganization … it just goes on and on. My heartfelt thanks to Rob for making my favourite place on the www even better. Thanks are also due to FontShop for hosting this amazing application.
Right, now I’m off to play with all the new toys :)
– p2pnut — April 27, 2010 #
Looks awesome. So many great new features. I’ve been slammed lately and haven’t had time to build anything new, but can’t wait to try out the new features.
– Bob Wertz — April 27, 2010 #
Great! More work for my neurons, just when I began to control the “old” FS! A lot of thanks (and I learn from the masters of FS 2.0, sure they are now playing with the new creature). My most sincere thanks for your great effort. Warm Greetings from Spain.
– elmoyenique — April 27, 2010 #
thanks a lot !!! that’s the best news from far !!!
Thank you to make this possible !
zen
– zen_killa — April 27, 2010 #
wow. awesome. can’t wait to use these new features! thanks!
– Simon Robertson — April 27, 2010 #
I was having such a hard time with my FS withdrawal symptoms and now when I really need my fix it has been upgraded. Beejeezzzus! Thanks!
– cayo — April 27, 2010 #
bravo!!
– steve cooley — April 27, 2010 #
Awesome work, fontstruct staff, and chapeau again, Rob! These are some really great new features… Especially rotating and flipping will make any fontstructors live so much easier. I remember this was the first thing I asked for some two years ago… Great that it’s here now!
The biggest potential is without any doubt in the composite brick feature. Especially the possibility to shrink 2 bricks down to one finally gives us the possibility to have 4×1 angles without a 2×1 filter, so you can have 4×1 and 1×4 angles at the same time… Any orgasms among the bezier fakers? ;)
The only thing I’m still missing is a way to make a bent line brick. But the “What’s next” paragraph gives me hope… :)
Keep up the amazing work!
– shasta — April 27, 2010 #
Hi, everyone! This is a big surprise. Thanks FS Team!
– superhuasteco — April 27, 2010 #
That is so good! I will be able to finish about 10 typefaces I started and then got stuck on the way. Thank you!
And why didn’t I know about this brick stacking bug in the first place?
– laynecom — April 28, 2010 #
omg… THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!!
Although I still hope for the day when FontStruct will allow users to incorporate vectors and curves, this update will certainly keep me happily busy for months to come!
– rkmugen — April 28, 2010 #
An excellent update – you’ve brilliantly expanded the possibilities without compromising the appeal or impact of the application.
A small request, however, that the competitions might take place a little more frequently. It could be a great way to not only to promote the tool (and new features), but also spur and solidify the community that has emerged due its inception. The new avenues this update has opened could surely inspire a few keen hands.
– chr.s — April 28, 2010 #
That’s awesome, now we can create elipses (semi-circle on top of a square, compose will create a 1/4 ellipse + rectangle, which you can crop off). :D
– ikarus — April 29, 2010 #
I still have to read through this, but after a quick look at the subtitles and illustrations, all I can say is… WOW. Thanks to all involved in this huge upgrade!
– SquarePeg — April 30, 2010 #
I haven’t tried out most of the new features yet, but I’m always impressed by how much care and effort you put into enhancing your masterful creation!
But there’s seems to be an odd bug in FontStruct. When you sign in and go to the home page of one of your fonts, the vote tally is shown as 0. If you don’t sign in, however, you can see your font’s current vote total and balanced rating on its page.
Is this a known issue? It isn’t the result of the recent upgrade, and it certainly isn’t a crucial problem. I just thought I ought to bring it to your attention. Cheers!
– fontcollector (aka Dan) — May 2, 2010 #
i wanted to add my thanks to Mr. Meek and all those involved in FS2.0. the changes seem really exciting and great additions to a great program. i played around with some of the new features and for me the rotate and flip are a joy. haven’t done too much lately, mainly due to starting to work again. i was out for a few months so it’s great to be back at it again. but i want to thank this great community for providing a sanctuary during my time on the beach :) without this great toy and fellow creative and supportive playmates, my ‘unemployment blues’ would have been a lot worse. thanks for everything this site has given me, which is way too long to list and probably really can’t be fully expressed in words.
– funk_king — May 2, 2010 #
and thanks for featuring iphontin the update blog. cool :)
– funk_king — May 2, 2010 #
Congrats on the new gig Funk King. So glad you spent your downtime here at FontStruct. It will be great someday to see what you accomplish with the new features.
– afrojet — May 3, 2010 #
Thanks for all the positive reaction everyone. It’s very exciting to see what people are doing with the new features already.
We’ve just updated the site with some bug fixes and a powerful enhancement of one of the new features. A blog post will follow… In the meantime, who can find the enhancement? (Clue: it’s in the FontStructor but not in the menu).
– meek — May 11, 2010 #
He he, stacking composite bricks… Great!
– Em — May 12, 2010 #
Yes/no/whoops – actually that’s not working yet – (i wouldn’t recommend trying it). the new feature (that’s working) is something else …
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 12, 2010 #
I tried it and it worked… but maybe was a temporary lucky bug! :)
– Em — May 12, 2010 #
You’re right, it does seem to work but it’s definitely an alpha feature at the moment. Use at your own risk!
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 12, 2010 #
Is there a function where you can copy the formation of the bricks from an existing character, so you can use it as a template for all the other letters? It would really save time for a lot of people. Thanks!
– Niquejb — November 21, 2010 #
@Niquejb Yes you can copy the bricks from one character to another. Select some bricks using the arrow/pointer tool (or press A to select all bricks). Then you can copy the bricks from the Advanced Menu (Edit > Copy) or by pressing C. Then you can go to a new empty letter and paste in the bricks (Edit > Paste) or V. I hope that helps.
– Rob Meek (meek) — November 22, 2010 #
@meek I think Niquejb means something like copying the ‘A’ to all the A with accent slots etc.
– 3moDuDe — November 22, 2010 #
@3moDuDe That’s not possible yet but is on the todo list.
– Rob Meek (meek) — November 22, 2010 #