Update to Preview Widget

Dear FontStructors,

We’ve updated the preview widget used on the gallery pages and elsewhere on the site:

(Above Example: “Penmanship” by “Thalamic” in the sample text mode.)

There are a number of new and improved features which we hope will help you to get a better overview of a FontStruction and to see how it works at different sizes.

Revised Menu

The preview widget now has a “VIEW” menu with three options:

• “All Letters” which is the default, displaying all characters within the FontStruction
• “Sample Text” which shows a standard sample text (for FontStructions with sufficient characters)
• “User Input” which turns the preview widget into a text entry field where you can try typing with the FontStruction

One-Click Pixel Preview

On the left there’s a “PXL” button which will give you a preview of your FontStruction at a one-brick-per-pixel resolution, whichever option you have chosen from the “VIEW” menu.

Interactive Zoom

Between the “PXL” button and the “VIEW” menu, there’s an interactive slider which you can use to view the FontStruction at a range of different sizes.

Vertical Scrolling

On the right, there are scroll buttons which you can use to scroll the text vertically line-by-line.

Larger Preview on FontStruction Homepages

On FontStruction home pages the widget is now taller and will usually show about four lines of letters. There is also an experimental feature: You can drag the bottom right-hand corner of the widget to resize it vertically.

Looking at FontStructions in the new widget is very revealing. The importance of setting an appropriate width for the space character quickly becomes clear. It’s also great to be able to see a more extensive character set more easily. Some designs which may have looked flawed or even dull as an “ABCDEF…” in the old sampler now reveal their true qualities more readily.

We’ve also simplified the embedded version of the widget. It doesn’t have a border anymore so it should be easier to integrate into the design of your blogs and webpages.

Please let us know what you think.