Thanks Boss. It was a bit awkward to scroll so much to read the latest addition.

Brick subtraction would be a GREAT idea in advanced FontStructions.

Yes, subtracting bricks has been an oft-made request for at least 9 years now...  ;^)

I wonder if the ability to create named glyphs would be possible (for example, to create a glyph called ".notdef" to define it oneself)

I haven't read all the past threads, so I'm sorry if I repeat something already discussed.

Biggest one: being able to work on an already published typeface without having the changes immediately published on save.

Second one: an overhaul of the basic bricks palette: showing only one per type, with a pull out visual menu to choose the orientation.

Third one, related to brick substraction: invert bricks (black becomes transparent, and transparent becomes black).

Last one: share alike licenses should not be binding for one's own fonts (also, why the public domain dedication has a share alike attached to it?).

Also a "follow" function to be notified of replies on threads where you posted would be neat :-)

Annnd here's my suggestion for #3 from June 2013...  ;^)

Forum: Fontstruct Suggestions 2

@Goatmeal Ha! Great minds and all that :-)

Here's mine from August 2010...

@riccard0 - Nice!  I failed to look outside of the suggetions forums for even older request examples like yours.  :^)

WE NEED THIS

WE HAVE THIS.  It's called "Brick Stacking":

Brick Stacking and Composite Bricks

oh...

I have a small suggestion, however niche it possibly might be: A way to jump to a specific Unicode codepoint. Not so much needed when not including CJK Ideographs, Very much needed when including CJK Ideographs. Something like how FontForge does it....

Anyone else experiencing connection issues on the FS website atm?

Font sample rendering errors & slow loading...

@Sed4tives Yes.

@Sed4tives & @riccard0: Me too, yesterday, but now everything seems fine.

And as of last hour or so my downoaded *.TTF file for my font somehow is broken. And it seems only PhotoShop is able of truly still making sense of it.

Illustrator, FontLab, notepad nor the FontDrop! webpage displaying the file correctly.

Both FontLab & FontDrop! partially recognize the TTF but deleted glyphs+metrics from any of the Unicode locations leave some sort of trace element within the Font's internal content tables. Ans this results in every of the deleted glyph's and data still internally getting recognized as if being present, hence leaving the these (no longer used) Unicode locations present within the font glyph set, showing as blanks without any grid content or metric data.

And while FontLab is able to access and run most things with the TTF as how it should, The empty glyph locations remain present. As for FontDrop! things have deteriorated next to nothing. And I guess including a screenshot that demonstrates what the heck is wrong will speak more that a thousand words in this case... So hang on!

@STF Did you, by any chance build glyphs in those slots then delete them? If so, the data remains unless you do remove empty glyphs in the FontStructor?

@BWM: Before when you simply removed all brick contents, letter width and kerning values the unicode location becomes free and excluded from the glyph set internally.

Okay, I can at least confirm that this is only the case for my  BOUWHUIS  font. The others seem to be just fine.

Again I experience slow loading times here at FS website, images not loading etc..

Me too. ?

Many characters in FS do not have names shown, and many do not even have glyphs. Would it be possible to use a font like Noto Sans to alleviate with this?

Also, the largest scripts, those currently split into blocks of 4096 (like CJK Ideographs and PUA), should be split into smaller blocks of 1024. As this would take up a lot of room in the dropdown box, it would be ideal to make these collapsible.

@erictom333 I don't think a collapsed list in a dropdown list is possible in HTML5.

Also, could we get quarter and three quarter arcs? They would significantly help with my font Monospac.

Very interresting read, although its somewhat old in news terms (2018), very interresting contens-wise. It iss an article by BBC WORKLIFE about the cost and trouble for a country to change its entire alphabet.

You can find the articele here:

"The cost of changing an entire country’s alphabet"

@Sed4tives: Very much interesting article. As a direct precedent, we have Turkey, which already changed its Arabic alphabet to Latin characters in 1928. I would really like to know the opinion on this issue of our comrade architaraz, who is a Kazakh.

@Sed4tives. I noticed the article. I hope I don't have to add a G-acute to my fonts in the future…

Some funny type related mini-games to test your accuracy with things like kerning, shaping letters and more..

Method of Action

@Sed4tives: Yes, I knew some of them, and even recommended KernType here once. Thank you very much for the fun.

It would be great to have a button to remove all kerning.

Amen to that!!

Or have option to remove all pairs, or only pairs with a kern value of 0.

You know it's a real TP when newbies start commenting random stuff on your FS.

Why do some people's comments show up in Selected, but not others? And why don't mine?

Something quite unfortunate and potentially problematic matter in regard my Sed4-Type Foundry name and the "STF" visual brand identity it carries came to my knowledge when I recently stumbled upon "Seabell Studio Foundry", a type foundry start-up based in Madrid, and soon to be opening up for business.
After taking a closer look at this other foundry I came to the troubling conclusion that this foundry in many ways is leaps ahead of me in terms of professional and commercial ambitions. And even though in fact I have registered my foundry many years proir to Seabell Studio, it doesn't feel like I could rightfuly feel more entitled to the "STF" identity than Seabell does.

Not because of the fact that there isn't really a case of actual copyright conflicts or anything, which there really isn't, but instead solely judged by the compared level of professionalism and commercial interrest.

Now, that being said, I really don't want to change my entire identity, let alone going through the whole process of adopting a new design routine for this new identity.

Over the last 8 years I've worked hard on building and establishing a consistent meaningful visual brand identity. As a way to centralize the accessibility for available products and to improved consumer recognition the  "STF"  expression was quickly adopted as the simplified trademark for the foundry's visual appearance. Which innitially was nothing more than just the literal abbreviation of the (S)ed4-(T)ype (F)oundry name, but over time evolved into this primary means for visual representation and image as to how the foundry is, and has been presented to the public type design community. To make matters worse, all these years I spend perfecting and personalizing it, turning it into this conceptual simplified blank template for my work. Something that I grew so comfortable with after years. So rather than just being this meaningless name abbreviation, it somewhat is fundamental for the differentiation that symbolizes my work.

But I never truly took things to the next level as was innitially planned by turning this into a successful business, whereas it seems that Seabell has.  

And for that reason I am kind of clueless about what I should do right now, as there are several options, but none of which that fully comes without some form of cons.

I hate the fact that I am no longer unique, and that possibly my work now runs risk of getting confused with the works of another. But I am sure that dropping a proven and effective concept, that I have felt so good with for so long, only to go through the then terrible process of creating and establishing a new one, I probably hate even more.
And I'm tempted to just forget all of this and just continue with the way things are right now, but somehow it ain't feel like the righteous thing to do...

Should I concider the reinvention of myself, or should I just keep whatever I had going for all these time now??

PLEASE HELP ME,

As I am desperate for some advice or healthy perspectives on this issue,

Thanks!

@Sed4tives: I am no legal expert, but unless you have registered your company in Spain, I don't think you can claim rights over the STF acronym. Having said that, having to differentiate yourself away from STF may not be the worst thing ever. NSTFW (New Sed4tives Type Foundary Worldwide)—or anything else—may give you the impetus to go commercial. The new handle does not have to be any different than STF, as it is unique in its own right. Reminder: a rose by any other name is still a rose.

I wonder if S4TFF would work as well?

@Sed4tives: I don't think you should change anything. In fact, I think that those responsible for the Madrid company should have been informed before recently starting to use the name "STF", a name that existed previously and that was very easy to locate in a field as lively as the creation of fonts. For example, I usually do a search on the net every time I have to name one of my fonts to avoid trademarked names... imagine if someone wouldn't do it much more if they had to choose a name to create a company ! In any case, I would contact the Madrid company, present the case and try to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Ultimately, and only ultimately, you might need to add something to your STF to differentiate it (but why not the Seabell Studio folks change their logo, something like SSTF = Seabell Studio Type Foundry?) ... Do not despair and do not think about abandoning the enormous work and effort that you have gone and continue to develop. Courage and hope, compañero!

Thanks for the replies fella's, I hope I can make up my mind about it soon! =)

Custom .notdef character would be great.

The default one is too thin and doesn't fit with the theme of my fonts.

@frongile (for your comment of 27/12/2022)

why is my old icon there?

@lucapri - Because it is a screenshot of a thread that was captured before you changed it...

The clone button does not work for me xd

@tntTiew

yeah

@meek: FS Live (& more) still broken, Boss...

Should be fixed now. Sorry I missed the comments about this before.

@meek: Thanks a lot, Jefe!

i still cant clone fonts that i can clone, it returns a 403 error

"still cant clone fonts that i can clone"

#Engrish (sorry STF)

xD

A brickswap confirmation popup or some drag’n’drop delay (or simply the ability to disable drag’n’drop) would be nice. I’m used to swiping to scroll on mobiles, but doing so in the FontStruct brick palette is very likely to cause an accidental brickswap.

That being said, I’d like to thank everyone involved for making FontStruct experience more comfortable on mobiles than when I last tried it. :)

Well, let's say that the issue isn't exclusively living in isolation for mobile devices only and that, at times, PC is prone to a fair share of its ordeal as well. And with that I hereby present my take on the subject matter in regard to PC use.

When changing brick palettes or Unicode sets with the drop-down menu's in the editor's 'left-sided'-bricks panel, the first brick the cursor hoovers over will stick to it in a similar way as if it was 'picked-up' and dragged about. And can be notived by the slight translucent brick icon that pops into existence from nothing and gets attached in front of the cursor.

Now beware, as in this stage the bug is like an armed explosive, waiting to wreck havoc in your fontstruction when one is not aware for a sec. or not paying close enough attention.

The trick to overrule this bug, is for one to click the left mouse button once. In response this will release the attached brick again. Sounds easy enough, one would think, right?
Well... It is also exactly in this action that lurks the potential hazard.

Left mouse click releases the attached brick and drops it on the spot, the same spot as where the cursor is currently located, so potentially even on top of any unfortunate brick that unluckily happens to be located precisely underneath, and in that case, it is getting replaced/swapped.

So the rather important thing here to ensure and be aware of, is: In case of the accidental release of the attached brick within the "Custom Bricks"-palette box, while also hoovering over another brick that sits in the palette, it will "Brick-Swap" the one underneath, and replacing it with the attached one.

In case the dragged brick sits above a brick stored in the "Custom Bricks"-palette, and enables this possible swap, FontStruct provides a visual cue and high lights the stored brick in bright yellow. So this can be noticed in advance and help prevent to cause any damage to the project.

And when for some reason an unintentional swap did occur, simply press "Z" (Undo) on the keyboard to revert this last action.

But even better is to be 100% safe, and in terms of not accidentally triggering a swap, its best to briefly move cursor outside of the 'left-sided'-bricks panel and click within the grid area once. And I cannot phrase this enough, but, do this the very instant you switched to a different Palette or Unicode set, even prior to just a continuation of navigating/scrolling the "Custom Bricks" or "Unicode sets" panel. As this completelly prevents it from ever to occuring again, until obviously new palette- or Unicode-sets are switched once more, upon which a repeation of the overrule sequence again is required.

But I think especially the slight more seasoned FontStructors are subjected to this risk, as these users more frequently involve sort of a auto-piloted workflow, with repetitive "quick-command" style inputs and maneuvers, that can have things happen in an instant, and sometimes a swap can even slip in undetected. For instance, my worst case scenario was when I unwittingly had been stacking multiple up, and once even, in some way changed two or more totally different custom bricks, and made duplicate swaped brick instances for them.
Not to mention when both the identical corrupting duplicates have been repeatedly incorporated into newer glyph architecture at a later stage. The results  from that faulty process now no longer allows a "non-destructive" and "single-action" reverse drag/drop fix, without ruining additional extra font content in the process.
This last essentially causing double the disfigurements, and overall became a much more difficult problem to tackle if not detected fast enough.

In case of myself, somebody that often runs uninterrupted continuous sessions that span well in excess of 4 hours, or even longer, without occasionally saving it even once, and this could unintentionally snowball out of control, perhaps even beyond any possible repair, before it likely finally is being noticed, but worst case is, that at that point it is already too late.

Left in disregard this problem probably has the biggest footprint of all in terms of the extend of circumstantial disruptive effects on the font. When putting it all in perspective, this by far left most ruin in it's wake as it was ploughing its way through my FS-catalog over the years.

And in fact we share so much history at this point I could probably fill an entire book writing about this illusive malevolent entity, and still have decent rant left for the sequel.

So that makes one, but pretty certain that there is more of us here who work with the PC, that at least, to some extend, are familiar with the issue.

But when work-flow is collective and aware, it is likely a lot easier to maintain a proper safe interaction working with the FS-editor as compared to a touchscreen operated UI.

Correction: I meant not "bright yellow" but "faint yellow" instead in case a possible swap is enabled.

Seems like the email function in FS is also broken (taking me to a "500 Internal Server Error), so I'll post here.
 

I can't seem to download any of my font files today from the FS website. It just ends in a "504 Gateway Time-out" page. I did manage to download one, but that's also corrupted. Saw a maintenance annoucement a few days back, perhaps something broke along the way?

Will be awaiting any updates, thanks!

I'd love to see @Cookielord's suggestion in FontStruct, so then I can stop accidentally brick-swapping all the time.

One thing I'd like to update is have 64 bricks max in a composite instead of 16 bricks max (e.g. you could create 8x8, 16x4, 32x2, 1x64, and other custom bricks). I'd also like the glyph selector to be slightly bigger so I can stop misclicking (or mistapping, in my case) the wrong glyph all the time.

Yes, the site has moved. And some things are not working. Specifically downloads – this is being investigated right now. I’ll post here when fixed. Thanks for your patience!

Add the fact that combining marks on ceratin letters collide with the base characters or other diacritics, especially in Latin-Extended Additional. I think using Arial for the site would be a better option, most likely because Lucida Sans Unicode doesn't support a lot of the precomposed characters within 1E00-1EFF

@susi baka I don't think that is possible as there are too many characters Arial does not support. Arial Unicode MS has actually suceeded until the release of Unicode 3.0, where it was no longer possible to contain every Unicode character inside a single font.

@meek I can't view the "My Fontstructions" page. Is this an error or is it temporarily unavailable?

Me neither...

It returns 500 for me as well

@susi baka Was it actually confirmed by FS staff though?

My FonsStructions is working again (at least for me), compas.

For me on mobile device too!

I can confirm that the FS-editor also works as should. Download works like a charm as well.. And is it me, or is there some improvement in server capacity / speed as well?

@Sed4tives. We did update a lot of underlying software during the move, so there might be some improvement in speed there. Glad you noticed!

New selection of great Featured Downloads. Please check them out! 😍

Thanks @elmo. Yes the selection is semi-automated now and should change daily. Renamed “Featured FontStructions” for now, because some of them are not downloadable.

One small request on my behalf, the gallery no longer shows a font count.. I'd love to see the return of that feature.

Some new ideas came into my mind. Circle tool: Draws a circle of the selected brick. Mass delete a glyph: Deletes the entire glyph selected. Mass delete a set: Deletes the entire set selected (e.g. Basic Latin, Cryllic, etc.). Last two have warnings, and they do their effects when you click "Yes"

I second @Sed4tives' request to reset the FSs counter, please.

@Rob Meek: Is the "Focus on FontStructors" Gridfolk: Interview series going to continue in the future?

Counts are back!

@Sed4tives. No short term plans there, but FoF has already returned twice after long hibernations, so why not! The last batch of interviews was almost entirely down to the initiative and generous efforts of @thalamic/@minimum.

I found a glitch when I tried to access one of the staff's fonts.

@bingula. Whoopee is back.

@Rob Meek: Yeah, I know his efforts were responsible for the last batch. I genuinely enjoyed reading the background stories on individual fontstructors and understanding the different motivations that drives each of their creative engines. Another very interresting aspect of those interviews was this revelation on some FontStructors not just strictly being involved in structing fonts, but often also work in other areas of arts and craftmanship, such as music, software, painting or editorial and so on. And I was actually pretty amazed to see that some of them in fact are truly multidisciplinary powerhouses.

Reading about these things behind a creator, the stuff that is either simply too 'off-topic' in terms of FontStruct's general coversation, so isn't usually being discussed on FontStruct, can be equally interresting. I find this physiology often super interresting, one's path that have led to Type design and FontStruct in particular, to see what inspires them In a strange way it helped personifying some facets to certain FontStructors ever so slightly.

So in the past, especially within this continuously absence of a steady dialogue amongst FS's community in general, these often imagination provoking interviews were a super interesting and welcomy treat.

These interviews also enabled sort of a reference to compare theoretical frameworks of another FontStructor with those of myself, and can be a very useful asset, and doesn't even necessarily directly has to be related to FontStructing or anything 'Type' for that matter.

To mention Just one such instance I had for example: reading Gridfolk: Interview with V. Sarela (Yautja) shed light on this great collage of Electronic Music works, composed by this very same FontStructor. Something I perhaps might have never stumbled upon prior to this Gridfolk “Focus on FontStructors” publication. 💯💯

That being said, and to get back for a second to my innitial question in the previous post above. I do realize that options in terms of members to interview are slim, but not entirely beyond the realm of possibilities. Some of the currently active members have a significantly less visible presence than some others of us in the community, nonetheless some of which have made several exceptional qualitative font contributions. And I certainly believe some of the newer members are also steadily building their portfolios within 'FontStruct', becoming future's next potential participant. 👀

We'll see what the future might still hold...  💭

y' know what i frogot? fontstruct 15th anniversary

also what is the next comp theme?

idc if im late

tú lo habías empezado, pues continuemos

@meek: Thanks a million ❤️❤️❤️ for the continuous great work you give us here, FS would never work (and of course wouldn't have existed) without you, and this needs to be reminded from time to time.

@lucapri & @susi baka: I don't think these kinds of controversies belong in this forum, I don't think many of us are interested. Maybe you should take it to your personal pages, IMHO.

@Elmoyenique: 2nd that, some recently really making a mess of the live feed with conversations of really no importance or that have no need to be public. Some people that have legit feedback to the staff or legit questions/requests get overrun by sometimes even complete pointless comments. And don't get me wrong, from time to time we all make jokes, but please try to keep pointless nonsense down to a minimum and in the appropriate sections or best, in private message. Thanks!

@STF One of those users were also doing it in my Unipixels font, planes 0 and 1, with them doing on the plane 0 font more.

(@elmo i dont have personal homepage)

trying to download Rodin Pixel

Yup, font download resulting in "504 Gateway Time-out"

Oh-oh... Only works the Glyph file download...

Downloads working again, for now at least. There may be some underlying problem. I will investigate ASAP.

@susi baka ...controversy isn't a bad word though. I've seen it uncensored multiple times before.

As the Suggestions page has been recently cluttered with off-topic posts and is threatening to become an informal "whatever / anything goes" forum, how about we get back on track: my suggestion is that there be a dedicated forum/FontStruct page like this one so technical issues can be brought to Rob's attention.  Considering the recent server change, it might be a helpful location to collect FontStructors' various issues.  There could even be a direct link in the header tabs across the top.

While this may be redundant because we can already contact Rob with any issue, at least FontStructors will be able to see that they might not be the only ones with similar problems at the moment.  The downside is that there might be a deluge of "me, too!" comments for the same problem, though that has already happened on this page...

@susi baka why. just why did you bring that up again.

getting back on track, i'd be interested to see a circle tool. we already have a square and line tool, so why not a circle tool?

also, a brush size slider, similar to that of the zoom slider (albeit changing the brush size, as the name suggests), would be nice.

Here's another Not-A-Suggestion™

I recently received the following message:

"I am a freelance designer and would like to use your font for mainly web use, please let me know cost for this font an how to obtain a download."

The person didn't specify which font.

I don't do these fonts for what should be their actual purpose, i.e. being used in some graphic design project. I only do them to challenge and amuse myself.

My question is, what should be an appropriate respond to this?

It’s good to raise general issues here (once is often enough!), but if you have an acute technical issue, such as not being able to clone, using the contact page is usually the best and quickest way to reach FontStruct Towers. Describe the problem you are having and remember to mention the name of the FontStruction involved if relevant.

Some users have restrictions on their account, including on cloning, usually due to abuse of the comment system. For anyone who hasn't done so, please read the FAQ on that! Note that account restrictions can be lifted.

@thalamic I guess you need to decide whether you are happy for someone else to use your design. If you are, you would need to ask them which font they want and then decide whether you want to ask them for a license fee and how much. Of course you don’t have to charge if you don’t want to. I’m sure there are others here who have sold designs – maybe they can share experiences.

@thalamic: I have been asked multiple times for a price and permission to use any of my fonts. I have given them freely whenever they have been requested for personal projects or small businesses. Otherwise, the logical thing would be to agree on a price, dear Master.

Allow users to create a custom .notdef glyph in their fonts.

@The Ametur I second that. The default .notdef glyph often does not work very well in my fonts.

What's a ".notdef"?

@bingula the .notdef is shown when the system attemptes to render a specific character, but cannot find a font for it. It usually looks something like this: ▯, sometimes it has an X or question mark inside it. Use of creative shapes is discouraged as it may not be recognized that the glyph can't be displayed.

@BWM Okay.

@RobMeek: Was sample image previewing for the live feed recently disabled or what?

I think it doesn't show if there is text accompanying the image

No there wasn't

@Sed4tives. I’ll take a look.

Should be fixed now.

Dedicated Metric guides for the Cap height and the X-height, as the guide labeled Top is actually the Ascent line, and anything outside that gets clipped on Windows.

Also the ability to build the .notdef glyph.

id like to see slope bricks (circle quarters) being able to be built with 4 bricks, 9, 16 and all other square numbers up to 100 bricks

bruh why dont we have this and why cant we flip/subtract bricks? it makes no sense, amirite?

@lucapri We can flip bricks. It's in the "Modify" drop-down sub-menu located in the "Edit" drop-down menu. I used the modify sub-menu for BD Pseudo-Curve.

(end of @ message)

Anyway, I second @BWM's .notdef suggestion.

@RobMeek: What I would also love to have at my disposal would be the ability to change font license straight from the font gallery page instead of having to physically navigate to every single page in order to make changes.

I'm with Sed4tives. This is a very interesting proposal.

@bingula

i mean invert

From my Oct 15, 2017 post in under forum: FontStruct suggestions 3:

====================

•The request for Brick subtraction has been around almost as long as Brick Stacking, and since at least mid-2013 in these Suggestion threads.  I had also suggested an "Invert"/ Opposite Brick function back then as well...

====================

I'm getting a "400 Bad Request" when trying to download fonts.

I tried downloading one of my fonts, but I dod not encounter a 400 error.

did not*

Private messages won't work for me: "The server returned a "500 Internal Server Error".

@RobMeek: Private messages working again.

"Your message has been sent.

The recipient will see your message when they next sign in to FontStruct, or when they receive their optional notification email."

Thanks boss.

@Sed4tives I'm guessing that's a new option because of the new server thingies. I've also been getting pop-ups of cookies and the "accept" and "decline" things.

It's more likely a result of further regulations from the EU concerning Internet privacy and data collection/storage...

@RobMeek: Another thing I recently keep notice to happen is that seemingly at random some comments do get shown in the live feed reel, whereas other doesn't, even if the two are part of the same page / conversation. Is there a reason for this to happen?

@Sed4tives I’m not sure, but users can have certain commenting and other priveleges suspended – e.g. for spamming etc. – One such privelege is that of comments showing up in the live feed.

@RobMeek: I'm quite sure 'Elmoyenique' hasn't got any privileges suspended.

@Sed4tives - That WE know of...  ;^)

I noticed one of my comments didn't show either. By the way, does the feed's "show more" button skip a page?

@V. Sarela (Yautja) - Yes, it's a problem I've noticed for years; I think I mentioned it to Rob at one time, but can't find where at the moment -- would love to be able to search my own comments on my own and others' pages!

You also commented on it 6½ years ago under the "forum: FontStruct suggestions 3" page:

=====

Happens here too, also seems like the "show more" button on live feed skips a page.

Comment by V. Sarela (Yautja) 5th november 2016

====

It always seems to 'miss' an entire segment of comments for a period of time from the previous(?) day, but the messages always return further down the list once that timeframe has moved 'forward'/'ahead' in time and the messages are revelaed again (if my explanation makes any sense).

It's like there's a continuous blind spot for Live thread messages for some reason anywhere from maybe 24-to-36 hours previous, though I've never really performed a time study on it to narrow down when exactly the 'blind spot' starts and stops...

Don't believe it has anything to do with server caches or server back-ups, since they are present during the first period of time, then they are gone, then they reappear again later on.

And don't get me started on FontStruct's 'broken' search function!  ;^)

@Sed4tives It's so arbitrary whose comments and fonts get shown in Live. My comments and fonts don't, but @Greenstar967's do. Why is this?

After looking at a comment on one of @Frodo7's fonts, I thought up the idea of having a fill tool. It could fill in hollow spaces (and without holes in the outlines), which would save a lot of time on font making.

(Referring to my last comment, I have forgotten the name of the user who made said font now...)

@meek: Some comments still don't appearing on the Live Feed, like these 3...

@elmo et al. I know. I’ve done something which will hopefully fix that going forward. Unfortunately there is a steady stream of people who abuse the comments system in one way or another. I try to filter them out, and sometimes we get false positives.

@goatmeal. Re search. I know. I know! That is a priority.

@meek: Thanks a million,  Boss!

@meek - re: Search functionality:  To be fair, you're running a font creation website, not a search engine! ;^D

While it's not 'broken,' per se, the search funtion is 'limited' by being too 'broad' (what an oxymoron!).  My analysis from 4 years ago is in the comments section of the following link; hopefully it's useful in narrowing down the issue(s):

Betrayal At Krondor - Chapter Italic

And many, MANY thanks for all that you do for us FontStructors, Rob!  :^)

@meek I wonder if OpenType features (and named glyphs) for FontStruct are being tested.

The default .notdef often does not work very well with my fonts as it would probably appear too big next to the letters since it goes to the top line—which is really the ascent line and not the capital height line.

I often like to create a set of oldstyle digits as well as the default lining figures, and the ability to implement OpenType features without having to edit it further in FontForge would be pretty nice.

Adding to the previous comment: For the named glyphs, anything like 1.onum, Æ.alt, Ж.sc, etc. to one.onum, AE.alt, uni0416.sc, etc.

Hello. Has anyone used the Glyphs file in the Glyphs app or Fontlab? I'm new to both. The FontStruct built glyph comes over as multiple bricks as used in FontStructor. How do you combine all the bricks into a single path? Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer. 

Hello, Master. As you have commented, the characters made in FontStruct appear in Glyphs with all their bricks. Most of these bricks can be removed in wireframe view while preserving the glyph outline. (Sorry, I can't be more specific now, my computer is dead and I'm writing this with my son's one.)

@thalamic: Look at the final comments about the S, please. Can help you a bit.

Thanks, elmoyenique. I will try it out. 

I wonder what happened to the FontStuct Maker? I wonder if it was because of declining uage?

usage*

@BWM Spreadshirt stopped providing the upload API, so we were no longer able to easily upload designs from FontStruct to their platform.

i want to clone fonts, it never works

this is like the 3rd time i ask for this

I'm waiting for the next competition this summer. What will the theme be?

I get that, Eric Tom. I have 2 top picks and still I don't see my comments and fonts.

504 Gateway Time-out when trying to download my Fontstructions.

Same. Both glad and worried that I'm not the only one with this problem. It's good to know that I'm not messing something up on my side, but it looks like this issue has persisted for a while. 

@Callmebrotherg: No, it was working like a charm until a couple of hours ago. And generally speaking it is pretty much always working, with only sporadic issues.

Downloading a font results in "504 Gateway Time-out" and FontStruct operates extremely slow in general atm most functions are affected (uploading images, updating content/texts & posting comments)

@Sed4tives should be ok again now.

Sublime boss, seems to work as should again.

I wonder if it would be possible to implement code that shapes the Arabic letters into initial, medial, or final forms depending on position within a word (provided the font supports the forms - if it doesn't, leave that character as is). Bitfontmaker2 does so, so I am wondering why not the FontStruct previewer?

We also need a button to go to the bottom of the comment section.

The FS messages don't work. The server returned a "500 Internal Server Error".

@meek: Well, messages still broken: a "500 Internal Server Error" appears again.

A dark mode theme for those who are fontstructing at night or in dark area so it is easier on the eyes.

how do i delete glyphs?

@maneirinho You can delete the contents of a glyph, but not the glyph itself.

@Bingula Designs (bingula): As a matter of fact, we actually can.

Make sure Expert Mode is enabled and follow the steps described below:

1) Remove all bricks in the grid canvas
2) Remove the green colored bar for "Letter Width" in the grid canvas
3) Click "Menu" in top part of the editor, navigate to: Advanced > Commands > "Remove Empty Glyphs"

Cheers

PM function is broken for me (sorry elmoyenique)

Whoops! An Error has occurred.

The server returned a "500 Internal Server Error".

Well, if you were trying to msg me don't worry I blocked u since u were driving me mad with all the messages.

Your own downloads aren't counted... so without real downloads by others your download count will not increase. But why would you wanna do that anyway?

Yes I know what you said, and I answered accordingly. In other words, there is nothing to fix since nothing is broken.

But man, put some more effort in understanding what people are saying! You keep re-asking stuff that already got answered.

Getting a server error when trying to save.

same.

I'm having the same problem as you guys.

I can't open editor, it's just stucks at 20%. Preview on font page also doesn't work properly - no zoom options, no preview settings. Downloaded font is fine - fontview didn't said "not a valid file".

These problems are with this font (https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/2278431/better-vcr). Other my fonts don't have these problems. Yesterday, before this all i've couldn't save my work and when i've reloaded the page, this all started.

Also, looks like the contact form is broken. Tried to report this problem. got a "500 internal server error"

Apologies for the outage. Should be working again now!

@meek: Gracias, patron!

@meek: Thank you! Editor and preview works fine

Is anyone on FontStruct a member of ATypI or some other international typography or even graphic design organization? 

I did not read all the previous suggestions threads, so please correct me if I am suggestiong something already discussed or possible. It would be great if we could link some glyphs as shared. I mean, we have commands for automated copying of the lowercase to upper case or vice versa, or to fill the latin ascends, but those are en masse and I would not dare to use them, if I for example only changed the base form of A to overwrite the whole set and maybe loose all the diacritic on other glyphs. Or could these commands be selective? Like lets copy whole set, or just the active letter for example.

@Sed4tives - I'm no expert in the voting system here on FontStruct, but based on my limited interpretation/understanding...

========================================
In September 2009, Fontstruct changed its voting system to include the 'balanced rating': "Balanced rating is probably the most important new feature being introduced today. The average rating values of a FontStruction are now calculated with a new balancing formula, which “pulls” ratings towards the system wide average."
========================================

The 'balanced rating' for your font takes into account the votes for all fonts on FontStruct in the form of some system-wide average value.  However, as there are new votes occurring every day, that system-wide average value will change/adjust each time.  As such, the value used to 'skew' your 'balanced rating' for one particular font on one day may be different than that on another day for another font.

Add to that, I doubt these balanced ratings are constantly being updated for every font whenever a new voter votes for some other font.  More than likely, the 'balanced rating' for your font remains static until there is a vote change (someone changes their vote's value for your font, or a new person adds a new vote).  Then, and only then, will your 'balanced rating' get updated using the new, current system-wide average value.

If I'm incorrect about any of this, please let me know!  Personally, I've never paid attention to any of my votes; voting is too easy/impersonal with a simply click.  I'd much rather see someone take the time and effort to actually comment -- good OR bad!  ;^)

@Goatmeal: Oh.. wow thanks for enlightening some of that up!

"More than likely, the 'balanced rating' for your font remains static until there is a vote change (someone changes their vote's value for your font, or a new person adds a new vote)."

— This actually makes total sense.

"Personally, I've never paid attention to any of my votes; voting is too easy/impersonal with a simply click."

— Well, the only reason I actually "kind of" care about the rating system happened partially due to a simple case of bad luck when some of the more favorite fontstruct works by myself got overshadowed by a buch of less favorite works I made. I wish I wouldn't, but yuuup, I'm cursed at this point 😜

I would rather not have it I guess, since it has been abused and trolled like crazy.

"I'd much rather see someone take the time and effort to actually comment -- good OR bad"

— Word!

@Peter (Petruuccio): "Copy to Latin Accents"  Simply a command for copying the "Basic Latin" glyphs into the Accented Latin slots located in the "Latin-1 Supplement" and "Latin Extended-A" Unicode blocks. — Best used upon completion of the "Basic Latin" (Aa-Zz) alphabet set.

When accented Latin slots are empty it will simply create copies of the "Basic Latin" glyphs and their "Letter Width" metrics into the accented letters slots. — Sort of as a time saving quick command.

When accented Latin slots are occupied this command will overwrite all the glyph brick content in the grid canvas. — So any diacritical marks present in any of those slots will be automatically erased in the process.

"Copy Upper to Lower Case"  &  "Copy Lower to Upper Case"  The name is pretty much self explanatory. — I personally do not find much practical use for it since I rarely make unicase fonts.

"Remove empty glyphs"  Command to clean up the Unicode location of removed glyphs. It will clear the Unicode location and reset "Letter Width" metrics. — Any additional kerning for each of the removed glyphs remains unaffected, and might require manual removal in Fontstruct's kerning window.

When a glyph's brick content is erased from the grid canvas to remove a gluph, it can leave some traces behind. When these aren't properly removed as well there is a chance that the 'seemingly' empty glyph slot of that previously removed glyph(s) still recognize as 'occupied' by the font. And therefor adds to the total caracter count.

The "Remove empty glyphs" command simply clears this data, since its somewhat tricky to re-trace once a glyph is removed and the canvas is empty. — Very helpful when a lot of glyphs were relocated or removed.

Still waiting for these...

@Sed4tives: "When accented Latin slots are occupied this command will overwrite all the glyph brick content". That is what I was affraid and why I suggested that we could have something like a source glyph, that would be once defined (similar to composite brick) and then pasted in a slots where it goes, like source A into Á and whenever the source would be edited, all the other linked clone instances would automatically take the changes.

@Petruuccio Kind of like references in FontForge, where any changes to the glyph automatically update all references of it.

@BWM: Yes, that is what I mean. I can imagine it would mean a new major function. But helpful would be even something smaller, like if the automated copy command could have submenu, like a)copy all basic letters to their ascended versions (like we have it), or b)copy the active letter to its ascended versions.

This is my lowercase s.

It's inspired by STF_GROOTESK by Sed4tives.

It's much better than it because I used a Staggered Circle.

Why?

Because There is a rectangle brick. I don't want to make it TOO squarish.

I used 2x2 filters to made it.

Uhm, whatever, mine took care of the stroke width transition from rhe spine to the curve. Yours is too thin in that spot. But really, do you think we live in some sort of competition over here at FS, go take a hike and dont use my name if you dont have something nice to say!

Another font. Based on Bauhaus. I used the most complex shapes

What is happening with the profile website and the gallery? @RobMeek, it returns a 500 Error when I try to take a look at my profile and others, also the same error for the Gallery too.

spell suggestions backwards:

snoitsEGGUS

the perfect dark mode

plz add this (but make the font colours white)

ps: i would like it if there would be a tab that took you to the forum

hey, rob meek...

i can't clone fonts that i should be able to nor i can't contact you.

it gives me a 4O3 "forbidden" error (how is it forbidden to send a message?)

is anyone (except lucapri) having this problem?

-digitalio

@Rob: Website images are not loading...

I think FontMortar went to sleep! 😉

@meek: The problem with the preview image of the fonts persists.

Might be because of a 502 error when it tries to load preview images.

When I used "remove unused bricks" on a font I was working on, it somehow removed many bricks that were in use, undoing much of the progress I had made on the font. Can this be fixed?

Best to contact me directly with this kind of thing. I will see if there’s a backup I can restore.

Thought I should mention, for me it does that almost all the time (at least it did in some of my big projects), so I don't use this feature that often. Definitely some sort of a sneaky bug.

I prwtty much use it all the time without any problems, but not without a backup clone just out of precaution!

what about my cloning error?

btw the first time i realized this error happened was when cloning a colour font

Not a big problem, but fontstruct is not displaying the lower case h in the gallery preview.

I think it is OK now working this way, the "numberscomp" fonts preview starts with digits, and for all fonts preview in general it does not show any letters the authors omited to include, be it lower or upper case or digits. 

@Gr4ftY (groan)

that's because it is alwasy an uppercase h (H)

Is anyone else having trouble getting their messages to appear or is it just me? I can't post messages on my own fonts (e.g. zombriya).

Non-FontStruct, Type-related

I've been trying to find a logical answer to this question but I haven't found one that clearly explains why: Why are fonts designed with greater than zero leftside bearing (LsB)?

With a non-zero LsB, when you use this font left-aligned in layouts, there is always a tiny gap on the left side, which is especially apparent when laying-out blocks of text in narrow columns, even at small point sizes. To my mind, zero LsB makes more sense. But I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Anyone have any theories on this? 

​​

@thalamic Maybe it's so the glyphs are centered, as some commercial font sites don't accept fonts where a majority of glyphs touch either side bearing…

To make me a negative font to be used as mask over colorful background, I had to make all the glyphs to overlap the boundaries, otherwise (with just touching from iside) no matter what size, there was always a tiny gap showing.

can you fix this <<cut 'n' paste>> glitch/corruption?

Comment by @lucapri 11th april 2023

I agree.

I would like to find some clarification. Is the drag and drop brick swap possible only with the core bricks, or can I somehow make it work even with my new custom bricks? When I try it, the target brick highlights, but after drop does not swap.

<@Peter> i dunno i don't use brick swap </@Peter>

<@digitalio-2> the 2 spaces cause it to loop back with arrow shortcuts, therefore making it impossible to get to Latin-1-aditional using the keyboard alone [excl. L shortcut]

</digitalio-2>

"Oh very nice" 

I'm able again to include *.gif images again.

Sorry, the above image was solely to test.. (but, its a bloody friggin funny one IMO)

<@meek> i can't clone </@meek>

<@meek> sorry that was a false positive </@meek>

@Sed4: Little Spidey does it right! I need one like this.

When i extended the height in my font (added 2 pixels from both sides), the pixel perfect size became 24 (before changes the size was 12), but shouldn't it be 16 or 18? Can size be changed to 16?

well, @Artzvk, it should be 16 if you addid 2 pixels on the top and bottom.

i never actually got that, so i can't really help.

I have a suggestion to add an 8-bit codepage mode in addition to unicode and default charsets, which includes DOS, ISO-8850-*, Windows-125* and other codepages.

This would be useful for easier redrawing of old bitmap fonts

You should have the ability to delete all of your private FStions. I have way too many to count.

Does anyone know why the "NumberComp" entries still have the modified gallery preview? They still show text figures first, isn't this going to be put back to default?

Suggestion: Brick Size

"Adjust the size of a single brick or a selection of bricks | Keyboard shortcut: Shift+B"

• Useful for "changing ring size"

• Allows changing both the length and the height of a single brick or a selection of bricks

When I try to view four's public FontStructions by comment count, I see this

@ctog_ This same thing also happens with download count and glyph count for the user you mentioned. Not sure who else is affected, and which orderings cause it to occur.

I seem to have accidentally pressed a button that makes the grid square under the cursor gray. Can it be disabled? I went through different settings and keyboard shortcuts but no luck.

@meek new anniversary update will come when fontstruct's 17th anniversary.

i suggest a feature that rotates bricks, especially makes it match the weight of the font.

@SUMMER701 - Rotating bricks already exists: Rotate Left = Shift + L // Rotate Right = Shift + R

@Goatmeal but how about half/custom rotating?

@SUMMER701 - Only 90º at this point.  Not sure if custom rotation angles would be possible in a modular type format like FontStruct.  But rotating bricks (your suggestion) does exist.

45º/half rotation is good for the anniversary update, along with subtraction, division, addition, intersection, multiply, and 1/16 nudging.

If not custom rotation, I would invite if at least we got the original 1/8 circle bricks for more than jusr one position, so we can stack and composite them like back to back and create for example 45° turned quarter on our own etc.

But even more than custom rotation, I would suggest to introduce general skew filter for the grid (similar to scale), so we can make slanted versions easier.

now i think 45° rotation will be an advanced feature and part of expert mode in fontstruct, along with intersecting, subtracting, adding, dividing, and multiplying, i hope to see these new features and new bricks soon in fontstruct!

and the 1x16 nudging, too!

FontStruct is officially 17 years old! We made it so far. And also, Happy April Fool's Day!

@lucapri I- I'm so sorry, and for such a late response (I have been away for... ever lol)

I didn't realize "the fonts that I can clone" referred to cloneable fonts... I'm like, "can you clone it or can you not?" This had nothing to do with apostrophes.

What happened to you anyway?

@STF How did I wrap you up in this anyway? Was this just poorly positioned condolences?

It's possible to use an invisible profile picture. Go to “My FontStruct” > “Profile” > “Avatar”. Import a blank 50×50 image, and click “Save Changes”. It will take a few hours for the profile picture to update.

@afontabove

·he made a secondary account (digitalio)

·he closed that secondary account

·he made a 2.5-ary account (may 2024)

·he closed his primary account (august 2024)

i am his 2.5-ary acount

There is a bug in the FontStructor where the baseline disappears, but the baseline appears again by playing with the veritcal metrics.

The “FS Patron” badge dosen't show up in the FontStruct Blog.

imagine that meek redesings the UI somewhat slightly every month until it stops being recognizable /s

oh and also dark mode

Dark mode would be pretty nice for fontstructing in areas with little light