FontLab Studio 5 is dead
André G. Isaak
Posts: 634
I know that I’m not the only one who has been sticking with FontLab 5 despite the copy/paste issue that arose on Macs post-Sierra.
Just to let everyone know, the macOS 10.14.4 update kills it completely. Working with existing .vfbs still seems to work, but opening existing fonts is broken. OTFs will open, but their unicode assignments are missing and the UPM is messed up. TTFs won't open at all.
Just a heads up.
Just to let everyone know, the macOS 10.14.4 update kills it completely. Working with existing .vfbs still seems to work, but opening existing fonts is broken. OTFs will open, but their unicode assignments are missing and the UPM is messed up. TTFs won't open at all.
Just a heads up.
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Comments
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Guess I keep my 2011 Mac a bit longer.3
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One more reason to stick to Windows...
"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
– FS52 -
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One more reason to keep my 2011 Mac in good condition the next years.
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Sadly, I have no 2011 Mac. Fortunately, though, I have a Snow Leopard VM in which FLS5 seems quite happy.2
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Hopefully you can last another three years and match my previous Dell. Which could actually have kept going, because another death that's been greatly exaggerated is that of Win-XP:
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Fortunately, though, I have a Snow Leopard VM in which FLS5 seems quite happy.
Me, too. It also lets me run the old Mac versions of ScanFont and BitFonter. Of course, you can run the Windows versions of any of these in a Windows VM on a Mac, too.2 -
Will some day FL guys revive a version of FL 5 that could still run on modern machines for hardcore users? More or less like what it was done with Fontographer... Will some other company buy FL 5's source and port it to modern platforms? Am I dreaming? I hope not, I would like to be able to run FL5 every time I need it forever.
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Please note that, although copy-append is not available in FontLab Studio 5 running is macOS Sierra and higher, you can still copy glyphs from one font to another by drag-n-drop. Just set the two font windows to use Index mode, select the glyphs and drag.
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I don't think the FontLab crew has any intent of spending any time porting FLS5 to any modern system software. Either they just don't care or just don't know how. They seem to work incredibly slowly compared to other vendors like Glyphs. I hope one of them proves me wrong.0
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Although we do not plan any updates to FontLab Studio 5 (it having been replaced by FontLab VI over a year ago), we certainly want to understand its limitations on the newest macOS. We are testing to see what the new problem is.
From the symptoms Andre described, it may be in some way related, at least in part, to support files used by FontLab Studio 5, and perhaps their location. We are looking into it.4 -
Hrant H. Papazian said:Hopefully you can last another three years and match my previous Dell. Which could actually have kept going, because another death that's been greatly exaggerated is that of Win-XP:
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Always count on Apple to break something completely in a point release.6
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Bring back FontLab Studio 5!3
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I'd be surprised if they did this (I'm sure they've got their hands full as it is), but I bet a lot of people would like a FLS 5 Mode in FLS VI, where the UI as much as is practical looks and works like the old version.
(But honestly, if you're a committed FontLab user, it'd probably make more sense to just get used to the new version.)5 -
I might as well switch to Glyphs then.0
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Thomas Phinney said:Although we do not plan any updates to FontLab Studio 5 (it having been replaced by FontLab VI over a year ago)
I know I’m not going to change any minds here, but I just wanted to briefly comment on the above.
While it may have been released as “FontLab VI”, I tend to think of the new version as “Victoria 1.0” since FontLab VI is really an entirely new program rather than an upgraded version of an existing one. As such, we’re moving from a mature product (FLS5) to a product which, while having a great deal of potential, is still very much in its infancy and still has lots of kinks to be resolved.
A comparable case would be the transition from PageMaker to InDesign. I think everyone would admit that InDesign is a superior product but, for those who remember InDesign 1.0, many of its more advanced features were severely hampered by the fact that it still lacked many features found in the more mature PageMaker.
InDesign 1.0 was released in late August of 1999. PageMaker, however, continued to be updated into early 2004, so there was over four years of overlap between the two products. And (as Mark Simonson’s post reminded me) the first several versions included a PageMaker plugin kit designed to ease the transition between the two by providing a more familiar interface.
The clipboard bug in FontLab Studio, on the other hand, came to light while FontLab VI was still in public beta, so FontLab effectively dropped support for it’s older, more mature, product before its successor had even been officially released — a situation which I don’t recall seeing before where a major application is involved.
I acknowledge that this comparison is not entirely fair, Adobe being a far larger company than FontLab and thus able to devote more resources to legacy products, but it still seems to me that support for FLS5 (at least the Mac version) was dropped prematurely.7 -
Clipboard problem in FLS5
The clipboard problem is caused by a change Apple made in macOS. Unhappily, they provided no solution for that (nor we found a workaround). But, as I stated above, you can still copy glyphs between fonts using drag-and-drop.
This way, FontLab Studio 5 is still fully functional in both newer Windows and macOS — except the new 10.14.4, of course.
InDesign 1.0 to 1.5
I am a user of InDesign since its inception. And, while I was not able to use 1.0 as a production tool, the scenario changed completely when version 1.5 came to light.
My opinion may be biased, but I believe the jump between FontLab VI 6.0 and the latest 6.1.3 is comparable to InDesign's. FontLab is quite conservative regarding version numbers so x.1.3 may not reflect how many new tools were added nor the amount of improvements and bug fixes were made.
Of course, we are aware FLVI still needs several adjusts and improvements, but I invite users who had a bad experience with early versions to try the last one. And to report their findings in our forum.
A FontLab Studio 5 mode?
An interesting idea. To some extent, this is already under adoption.
Those who don't like FLVI elements can work with components. It is still not the same, but the overall use matches FLS5's. A number of tools and behaviors from FLS5 were brought back recently, especially in 6.1.2 and 6.1.3. And more is expected for 6.1.4.
The user requests in our forum are serving as a thermometer for this, so the feedback you give there is extremely important.
A final note: it does not matter what I say or how much each version improves if you need a given tool that is not available. We are working hard to close the gaps, but we understand that for some of you FontLab VI is just not a choice (for now).
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Igor Freiberger said:Clipboard problem in FLS5
The clipboard problem is caused by a change Apple made in macOS. Unhappily, they provided no solution for that (nor we found a workaround). But, as I stated above, you can still copy glyphs between fonts using drag-and-drop.
This way, FontLab Studio 5 is still fully functional in both newer Windows and macOS — except the new 10.14.4, of course.
And the drag and drop is only a partial solution — it doesn’t provide full functionality.A final note: it does not matter what I say or how much each version improves if you need a given tool that is not available. We are working hard to close the gaps, but we understand that for some of you FontLab VI is just not a choice (now).I do not doubt that people at FontLab are working hard to close the gaps, but the fact remains that there was much functionality in FLS5 that is still not available in VI. No doubt that functionality will eventually be added back, but the fact that it has not been yet leaves those who need it in the awkward position of choosing between using our favourite software and updating our systems. It's for that reason that other vendors continue to support older software for at least a period of time after the release of new software (4.5 years in the case of PageMaker).
On an unrelated note, I just noticed that the 10.14.4 upgrade also breaks Fontographer 5.2.3 (this isn't particularly important to me, but it may be for others).4 -
The user and all related content has been deleted.7
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The user and all related content has been deleted.8
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I've actually worked with the demo of FL VI recently and started getting really comfortable with it, although I keep FL5 open if it's needed. The impetus was that I had a new italic typeface style that I wanted to utilize slanted sidebearings in an effort to help retain my sanity during the development process. So far, so good!0
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I've eased into it a bit at a time, like wading into a cold lake... I've found FL VI to have a steep leaning curve, but not so bad really ... Once you're in. I still prefer the FL 5 interface for metrics and kerning, but otherwise, I like it. I'm half tempted to go back and kern my masters in 5 and do everything else in 6, but only half. I think it would be more trouble than it's worth.0
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The kerning in FL6 is just maddening.0
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The user and all related content has been deleted.0
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My experiences with FontLab Studio 5 after moving to 10.14.4 are similar to André’s.
Note: TTFs nominally “open,” but without any glyphs.
You can re-encode an opened OTF based on glyph names, of course—which might be useful on occasion, but hardly entirely satisfactory for general ongoing use.0 -
FontLab Studio 5 is not only alive; it's sentient. How else can you explain how doing the the same action generates different results?
Generating a OT test displaying a system font? Try again. No? Try again. No? One more time. There you go!
Does importing an axis put your equal sign and other symmetrical shapes in the wrong order. Close it open it. Try again? Still no? Keep doing it over and over and it eventually will get it right.
Is blend shuffling glyphs with identical components like colon, ellipsis, divide, double quotes, double guillemots? Blend the same fonts again and again and you'll see different results.
Is blend killing half your kerns? That's only happens one in ten times so you'll probably just have to try once more.
Exporting a typeface and one font didn't work? Give it another shot.3 -
Ray Larabie said:FontLab Studio 5 is not only alive; it's sentient. How else can you explain how doing the the same action generates different results?4
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André G. Isaak said:I do not doubt that people at FontLab are working hard to close the gaps, but the fact remains that there was much functionality in FLS5 that is still not available in VI.Ah, the problem, then, is that FontLab 6 started from a new code base, instead of being FontLab 5 with improvements and new features.And, of course, this has to be done every so often, otherwise the program will become unmaintainable as layer after layer of stuff is added to very old code at the heart. So I guess the problem is that the customer base of FontLab isn't big enough to support a company big enough to have fully implemented and debugged every last bit of FontLab 5 functionality in FontLab 6 prior to release.Given that even companies the size of Microsoft can't get new releases right, though, it's unrealistic to expect perfection.One alternative might have been to somehow update parts of FontLab to a new code base, while keeping the old code base for functionality not yet migrated. That approach, though, has a danger of introducing bugs, but if it could have been managed, then customers could keep current without losing any functionality.1
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John Savard said:André G. Isaak said:I do not doubt that people at FontLab are working hard to close the gaps, but the fact remains that there was much functionality in FLS5 that is still not available in VI.Ah, the problem, then, is that FontLab 6 started from a new code base, instead of being FontLab 5 with improvements and new features.And, of course, this has to be done every so often, otherwise the program will become unmaintainable as layer after layer of stuff is added to very old code at the heart. So I guess the problem is that the customer base of FontLab isn't big enough to support a company big enough to have fully implemented and debugged every last bit of FontLab 5 functionality in FontLab 6 prior to release.
All of this I understand full well. I am aware that software must occasionally be rewritten from the ground up and that this will inevitably introduce new bugs, and that there will usually be a time lag before all features of the old version are reimplemented.
My issue is the complete lack of overlap between the old and new versions. Support for FontLab 5 on the Mac effectively ended with High Sierra despite the fact that the new version had not even been introduced yet. Because of the complications which can arise when introducing a new code base, every other company of which I am aware normally continues to maintain the old version for a period of time following the the release of a version built around a new code-base. But this has not been the case here.2
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