JAF Test Text Generator

Dave Rowland
Dave Rowland Posts: 39
in Resources
It seems that Just Another Foundry's incredibly useful text generator is not there anymore. Does anyone know of a similar tool? I'd use adhesiontext but I like JAF's generator for the accented character support and punctuation.
Cheers in advance!

Comments

  • Drawcard
    Drawcard Posts: 56
    I'm a big fan of Word-o-mat: http://glyphsextensions.com/word-o-mat/

    It will let you generate dummy text for a number of languages or you can import your own word list if you need something more custom. Plenty of config options as well.
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,008
    @TimAhrens!
  • Paul Hanslow
    Paul Hanslow Posts: 175
    Thanks for commenting on this Tim. I was an avid user of JAF's text generator as it was mighty helpful when designing/proofing type work. 
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 752
    Possibly might make more sense to turn it into Javascript so it can work on any hosting environment...

    Here are a couple of similar projects I've been involved with:


  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    Simon, that makes perfect sense. Javascript is probably the way to go for a browser version.
  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    Small update: It seems I will be able to get the current Python version to work again on my server if I use a small PHP wrapper and move to Python 3. Right now, I am too busy but it should be doable by the end of the month.
  • Drawcard
    Drawcard Posts: 56
    Thanks Tim! That's good of you.
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,440
    TimAhrens said:
    The generator is working again, after a few tweaks.

    Now I'm getting the actual python script in the results window instead of the generated string.
  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    Seems my hosting company messed something up again. I will investigate.

  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    edited July 2021
    Okay, confirmed. My my hosting company (DomainFactory) silently made a change that broke my scripts, this time, without me making or requesting any changes, and without a warning or notification. Not what I would expect from a respectable company. They have become quite useless in recent years. Can anyone recommend a good web hosting service available to German customers?

  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 752
    Hetzner.de will give you web hosting with Python CGI for 4.90€ a month.
  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    Thanks for the suggestion, Simon. I’d be looking for top-notch customer service and reliability rather than cheap pricing. Maybe their other products are worth having a look, though.
  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 57
    edited July 2021
    Update: The generator is fixed again, for now, using a PHP wrapper. Needless to say, without any meaningful support from my hosting service. Let’s see how long it lasts this time.

  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Not to open a separate thread for a related question:

    Is there a generator that lists all required pairs? For example, I would like to see how cap B looks with all the other cap letters (or just some of them, etc.)?

    Guess it's super easy for those who use Python but asking for the rest of us :)
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    all required pairs
    Required for what?

  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    edited June 2022
    Sorry I wasn't clear :)

    I would need a text generator that lists all pairs between two specified sets of characters.

    For example, I specify that:

    Set 1 is (A,B,C)

    Set 2 is (X, Y, Z)

    And then I get the pairs list:

    AX AY AZ BX BY BZ CX CY CZ


    In other words, I need a simple pair generator.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Oh, seems I just found it, once I realized I should search for "pair generator" instead of text generator. 

    http://www.junikstudio.com/kernings/
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 752
    Check out also Galvanized Jets, which puts those pairs in the context of words.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Thanks!

    It seems that you can't filter just some problematic pairs to inspect, but rather make a thorough font test. Great testing tool anyway.
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    @Igor Petrovic FWIW, here's a similar kerning string generator. You can add more than two sets e.g. ABC xyz abc will produce:
    AxaAxbAxcAyaAybAycAzaAzbAzcA
    BxaBxbBxcByaBybBycBzaBzbBzcB
    CxaCxbCxcCyaCybCycCzaCzbCzcC
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    This is an amazing tester, not only for pairs. Somehow, I missed it out so far. Congrats @Adam Jagosz, well done!
  • PabloImpallari
    PabloImpallari Posts: 806
    My testing page have a similar tool.. its no longer online on my website but someone uploaded it here: https://musictypefoundry.com/text-font-testing/tools.php
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Glad it's live, I used it a lot, thanks Pablo!
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,431
    Pablo, I believe @Lasse Fister has recently ported your tools to js :)

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