The designer of this FontStruction has chosen not to make it available for download from this website by choosing an “All Rights Reserved" license.
Please respect their decision and desist from requesting license changes in the comments.
If you would like to use the FontStruction for a specific project, you may be able to contact the designer directly about obtaining a license.
188 Comments
I think personally that the device that would need the most important improvement should be the PREVIEWS in FS, whose low definition is absolutely not adapted to intricate works. When i saw how were rendered my works in Myfonts or Dafont, even choosing a relatively small size, it was day and night with FS, i rediscovered them. All details were there, when you always have to Zoom in to excessively big sizes on FS just to begin seeing details.
maybe you could write the whole text on the font just in one character, so it would show in the live feed properly.
I've sent some suggestions and bug reports before, so I'll write them here too. Bugs:
-When I start the fontstructor, I can't choose the first square brick in "all bricks" (it doesn't turn yellow)
-When I add more bricks to the "my bricks" window, the scrollbar doesn't go all the way down unless I resize the window
-When you select a character, change to a new character and zoom in or out, the previous character appears
-When zoomed out, you can't add a brick to the first grid square at the baseline
-Stray bricks sometimes appear somewhere far away from the main working area
And suggestions:
-When there's only one guide, the remove button should be hidden (sometimes it seems to be so, sometimes not)
-"Lock guides" probably shouldn't affect the width guide (I often need to change that but not the guides, so I need to keep locking and unlocking)
-Making it possible to hide the zoom window
-Having the tool palette next to the "my bricks" window by default
-Possibly a shop where you could sell your designs and maybe commercial fonts?
@Yautja Thank you. Regarding the "shop" idea, FS is based on free fonts, and we do have FontShop, so I don't think that's the best idea.
I will work on the avatar. I have three accounts now! It's a bit stressful.
1) The # of brix 4 stax & composites r limited.
2) You can't make composites with any stacked brix.
3) The filters limit is low.
1) In Firefox; when the screen is "restore down", and I FontStruct, and then is go back to Maximize, the right part of the screen is a blank void until I fiddle with the zoom bar. This problem doesn't appear in Opera.
2) In the FontStructor's Preview, (at least on the bottom area) if it's set to the largest size, then instantly shrinked down to pixel resolution, there's nothing, not even a scroll bar. So then you have to zoom back to large, and slowly scroll to small, while moving the scroll bar so that the Fontstruction still shows in the area.
4) Remember that inversion tool someone said on your blog? No matter how advanced it seems, add it!
My suggestion: in the Live feed, show all fontstructing as default, not selected, for those that haven't gotten TPs.
Suggestions:
-I've wondered if there are undo and redo button on the FontStructor.
-And I think we can reduce the limitness of curves if there are compositing composites feature.
I hope this little forum will realized by meek and make this site better.
Also with regards to all of micgio's suggestions 1-3, I know they are really good but they might be extremely difficult to implement, so it might be crazy to have them all. As of now, there is actually no restriction on the number of bricks you can have in a stack. Actually, by solely modifying the filter range, it is possible to overcome the lack in composite functionality and reduce the need for creating more complexities such as stacks in composites and composites in composites. Thus I propose keeping the composites and stack functions as they are, and changing the upper filter limit to 5 or thereabouts.
Finally, +1 to the inversion idea that we've been suggesting for a long time.
Suggestions:
-Automatically close bold etc. tags in comments and descriptions (there's a bit of a problem on live feed now for example)
-Sometimes the comment box is at the top, sometimes at the bottom, sometimes both. It could be at the bottom only (easier to see the last comments)
There have been some positive things here - fellow FontStructors pointing out already existing features such as the 'undo'/'redo' function. That is entirely in keeping with the spirit of FontStruct as we have always been ready and willing to help one another as well as guiding those who are new.
However it would be a shame if this forum descends into being just a conduit for demands/grumbles/complaints/whinges etc. Always remember that FontStruct is not some mega-rich, multi-national corporation ... it is an extremely useful and clever tool - given to us freely. It is largely the work of one man. Rob Meek does all he can to ensure that FontStruct works well and continues to develop - but it is only one part of his, already busy, life.
As I said, Fontstruct is a tool - and it takes time and patience to master any tool. Part of the fun of FontStruct for many is in managing to overcome its limitations and then producing work that we can be proud of.
If you have a spare $650 lying around then go and buy Fontlab, I'm sure it would do the job far better In the meantime we should all enjoy what we have here and go forward as a community in a spirit of co-operation and mutual support.
... and let's not forget the old saying ... 'a bad workman always blames his tools'.
The suggestion forum is more meant for the users than the staff - we can see what's already been suggested, so the staff doesn't get numerous emails about the same things, that's why I thought this would be a good place to put ideas. Plus there can be more discussions on other topics, so it's not just "complaining". :)
You could also remove the one immediately above this :)
About your bold/italic run up there: everyone makes mistakes :)
1) A better way of organising fontstructs into folders or groups. I have 556 fontstructions spread over 56 pages. A pull down menu, where you can sort by Date/ Alphabetically/ Tag etc with the option to reverse it. Or folders that fontstructs can be dropped in, and can be individually named and organised as above. So you can have fonts in categories like Black Letter, Block, Pixel, 3D, Display, Experimental, To Sell, Completed etc. Otherwise I find it can take up to 30 minutes to find a font.
2) The elusive ‘house’ brick. I know you can create it using composites and filters, but recently on several designs, it is still the one brick that cannot be produced at smaller sizes, and I have to correct the design in Fontllab. Having this brick would make all my fonts perfect.
3) The option to show work, but not allow downloads.
4) The option to sell work, with a percentage going towards Fontstruct.
5) STOP users making exact clones and renaming them as there own.
6) The option to scale bricks to any size.
7) A font mortar countdown for the number of bricks you have used/ can use before it crashes.
8) Option to adjust line width. It should be set to caps/lower case height. At the mo, it’s set to the lowest and highest brick is.
9) Correct the PREVIEW when viewed on a MAC in Fontbook. Currently all fontstruction when previewed say ‘Five big quacking zephyrs jolt my wax bed’. Every other font I preview shows the Alphabet and numerals. This is very frustrating.
Speaking of tags, I remember reading somewhere that private tags are not visible to others, although that is not the case. Not sure if they should be.
Basically, suggestions are fine, complaints are unnecessary, especially if they don't matter. For instance your suggestion #9 is not quite a big deal or talking about how FS can improve. Correct me if I'm wrong, djnippa or p2p.
@demonics: Suggestions are fine and this gives them a chance to be discussed - I just don't want to see something that puts even more pressure on Rob
I have followed it, as I have followed all the "font moots" in the past. I'm not going to comment on all feature requests but they are almost all good ones so far. It is good to put pressure on me although it doesn't mean things will be fixed or features added quickly, but it might help.
What is the "house brick"?
I think dj nippa meant a brick like this...
8) Under Unicode Settings, some--er, most--of the characters r replaced w/ spaces or rectangles.
WHY DID YOU ADD CATCHES???
And this is probably somewhat complicated but a way to change the font used to show in the Fontstructor's Current Letter box. It has the potential to make it easier for people making a font that is Serif of Sans Serif only. Also a possible remedy for the strange minor glitch above.
i'm lazy but get by FontStructing so you don't have to consider all my suggestions :)
Clearer (?) explanation
1) Go to Hangul Set
2) Press Left (Keyboard) and end up on 힣
3) Click on anything not [space], 가, or 힣 and the list unusually wraps around to the first character, and the three disappear
1) Go to Hangul Set
2) Scroll to the end with the arrows
3) The list wraps itself infinitely (?)
Just an idea...
I'm pretty sure that someone wrote something about this in the past but I could not find it...
Suggestions?
1) Select the brick you want to slice.
2) Click a NEW SLICE button in the menu. (how 'bout shift+q?
3) Use the "knife" tool to slice the brick. If you have to, resize the new brick.
4) You're done!
11) Sometimes comments have limited sizes.
Also, in the preview page, if you zoom in so that a scrollbar appears, then scroll down and zoom out, the scrollbar disappears and the font doesn't show correctly.
Also, it's frustrating that fonts are sometimes different when they're downloaded (random bricks replaced, space between words is different, etc). Hope it can be fixed.
12) Unless you resize the ZOOM, the scrollbar won't change.
13)That new kind of comment post cablecomputer showed. And don't make it that typewriter font again.
And the commonly suggested:
14)LOCK GUIDES also locks LETTER WIDTH.
@meek: Fix all our problems & suggestions!!! :)
I just wanted to express my thanks to those of you that allow cloning of your fonts. I have learned so much about filters, stacking, composites, etc just by studying the fonts made by others.
Many thanks!
2) These bricks
>>>>15) FontCreator's kerning
>>>>16) Those brix
FontStruct is free to use @ its fonts are free to download and sometimes to clone, but the more people realize its potential, the more they think of changes that can be made. Only 1 solution:
3) OPEN SOURCE
17) Under Advanced, where it says Copy Basic Latin letters->Latin Accents, Upper->Lower, and Lower->Upper, there could also be Basic Latin-Latin Extended A, etc.
The abovementioned invisible brick problem still persists.
:4 or at least 3:3.
I use 2:2 filters almost every time and it lets me have more options when I mix bricks, and with 3:3 or 4:4 it would be even better.
Also I would like to second the will.i.ૐ's suggestion since I've needed that type of bricks many times before.
1. The "Copy to Latin Accents" button should be removed and REPLACED with a "Copy from Basic Latin (or Greek..)" button in each block like Latin Extended-A, Greek Extended, etc...
2. Maybe a chat where people could ask stuff when they're in trouble?
3. Friends? Fun is impossible to make when you're alone.
4. Maybe a "Sneak Peek" thing where people could look at their FRIENDS' FontStructions (while FontStructing), but with permission.
// Your #2 already exists. It's these forums.
Am I the only one who has trouble creating new fontstructions? When I write the name and click "Create new fontstruction" it goes to "fontstructions/create" and shows a blank page. I tried writing "fontstruct.com/fontstructions/create", but that took me back to the naming page. I have also tried to go to the fontstructor, but that is just the last font I edited.
Are you aware of this bug Meek?
Im running Firefox 16.0.1 on a Windows XP machine.
Also, there could be a special "spacing" editor, where you could edit ligatures and kerning, and also adjust how long a space (blank) is.
As to the spacing issue, you can already adjust the 'space' (between the lowercase and numbers) and 'no-break space' (at the end of 'More Latin').
______________________________
Another suggestion I have is that there should be a Diamond/Rhombus brick, and there should be a brick editor where you can build your own bricks. The Bricks Editor allows you to draw bricks with vector points, instead of creating them with existing bricks, like in compositing and stacking. Also, there should be a new tool called "Pencil Eraser" Pencil Eraser allows you to erase by drawing, instead of selecting a bunch of bricks in a rectangle and deleting them all at once. These would help many FontStructors, including me. :)
And don't forget these bricks:
Pencil Eraser: There is a trick, a workaround. Suppose, you want some white hand drawn pattern on black. 1. Draw the black background. 2. Using the Pencil Tool draw your pattern somewhere outside of the background. 3. Select your pattern. 4. Copy and paste it by pressing C and V, respectively. This step is only for safety: in case something goes wrong, you still have a copy of your pattern. 5. As the pasted pattern is still selected (blue), move it over the background, position it carefully. 6. Delete the pattern by pressing X. As a result your pattern appears in white against a black background.
It's a sort of thing that's much easier to do than explain.
When I design a font, I like to show it, as I really appreciate everyone's comments, but I hesitate to show anything these days, as I design my fonts with the intention of selling them - if I feel they are worthy.
Also the majority of these fonts are rough versions of the final font. It is not supposed to be used and abused.
suggestion:separate published and private fonts.
Well, maybe you can publish only the limited character set, let's say only UC (but show us LC, punctuation, accents etc on a sample image).
And if you're using software like Fontlab, you can always say: "This is a demo version. For a full font, with kerning, alternatives, full character set, you know all those opentype features, please buy it www.here.com, or contact me @mail".
I aslo think of selling fonts, you know, just to see what happens :) I'm not naive, and I know that one can't earn money for a living by selling fonts if you're not already in a TYPE business, which I'm not. So it seems www.myfonts.com is the best option for freelancers like me.
I was thinking to start from my "Happi" or "Garage Garbage", I already have some accents, cyrillics for them, and all I need to do is to figure out the kerning (I don't think I'll go any further).
Thanks for reading this. Happy New 2013 Year!
architaraz.
btw 126serif was fine; recently edited; noticed in my fontstructions there was only [⇩]1 and no [ᕱ]*however characters there were*
@meek: I'm still noticing a bunch of blank fonts on Fontstruct.
Also, please add these bricks: (Each grid square is one brick.) Thanks!
I have tried many times to create a composite for the triangle - without success.
If someone out there can create this composite triangle, that would be great
If not, I would be grateful if it could be considered for a future update.
I think a subscribe/ unsubscribe feature would make conversations a bit more fluid.
I know there will always be more bricks that we want...but, if you do give us some, please give us new ones first.
If it can be made with a composite, it doesn't really need to be a default brick.
I do agree with aphoria's statement: "If it can be made with a composite, it doesn't really need to be a default brick."
And another suggestion. Can we add some basic editing tools when writing a comment? You know, italics, bold, url, so that we don't have to use those html codes?
Thanks!
Hey, I wonder if you hold some FontOuts again. To wait and could be for practice for official competition to be held, just an idea.
Bug: Sometimes, in the FontStructor "Preview", the scrollbar (on the bottom at least) disappears, and I have to move or click on the zoom positioning-thing to make it appear again.
(No, I just set em space's width right here, see?) Restart the FontStructor.
Suggestion: There should be different kinds of TP's like Creative Pick, Useful Pick, Legible Pick, Competition Winner...but of course it's all up to mr.meek, not a little 10 year old like me.
I would like:
=> Change filter maximum to 4x4
=> A function to resize bricks, especially the circles. When you now want to get a circle in a design bigger than 2x2 (WHO MAKES A 2x2 DESIGN?????), then you always have rounded squares...
Should I update it or something wrong on the site or what??
Thanks for any advice!
This means that I have to reset all the paramaters (Extra Guides etc.)of my FontStruction each time I open it.
You could have a look at this FAQ Article for advice on clearing local storage.
And PUH-LEEEASE make us be able to zoom out more.
Being able to "friend" people, and "block" spammers and cyberbullies from messaging you or commenting on your fonts.
Prevent cloning fonts and not changing anything.
Allow people to vote on whether or not a fontstrcution should get a TP. If it gets enough votes then it's a TP.
Allow people to block anyone commenting on a certain font or all their fonts.
Don't change image's sizes when uploaded.
Ideas for buttons:
Copy to Extended Latin…
Copy to Greek
Copy to Cyrillic
Upload to (insert font site here)
But it seems doesn't work. The error message still occur and I still can't click on anything on the FontStructor.
Somebody, please help me!!
What do you think? Do i Need to explanier a Little more?
2) Ahahahaha this is amusing: Every time you switch between Unicode Letter Sets and Normal, the list of sets gets wider~
I like Frodo7's suggestions for bricks. Also, these bricks I forgot in my previous post.
Are you suggesting in the first of your last two posts (with the propeller brick-like formations) bricks such that are contained in a single grid square of your diagram? I work so often in 2x2; at first I thought “ok, these are propeller bricks and some composites or overlays possible with them...” Then I read your previous post.
Those shapes are quite provocative, yet I don’t know about the general usefulness of subdividing quarter-circle-type bricks into quadrants like you show. Doing these mathematical cuts lead to irrational (non-fractional) numbers that would only combine precisely with the other irrational bricks in your first proposed set – just how you have them laid out. Perhaps what would satisfy your desire here is the oft-dreamed-about and requested ability to anchor and scale bricks on an individually basis rather than across the artboard as with the current filter function?
@regular_one: Now there’s an awesome suggestion. I love your lateral thinking. If the FontMortar had an option to output css, FontStruct would instantly become an incredibly powerful modular design tool for html5 layouts and animations. David DeSandro (aka nemoorange) proved this doesn’t just apply to faux-curves. His approach is a diamond in the rough, a hidden gem, unknown but still known to blow minds. :)
Comments are closed.