robin@csuchico.uucp (Robin Goldstone) (03/17/89)
I recently bought MenuFonts 2.02, a program which displays the font names listed in the Fonts menu in the acutal font. This program looked handy I can never remember what many of the fonts look like...It was recommended by MacUser magazine as well. Cost: $30 from MacWarehouse. Well, the software is a total dog! After installation (it is an init) it causes extensive disk overhead on my system. System startup takes 10 seconds longer, and statup of Word jumps from 6 seconds to 27 seconds. The overhead even exists on programs that don't use MenuFonts! I called the company that wrote the program, Beyond Inc., about it. They were puzzled they had never heard of such overhead! I sent them a copy of my disk. They called back and said that indeed it was slow, but adding some RAM cache helps a lot. This is not a legitimate solution in my opinion! I added a RAM cache of 32k (all I can spare on my 1 meg SE) and got the Word startup time down to 16 seconds. Still unacceptable. Hey it works great on my home Mac: SE with 4 megs and a 512 RAM cache... But I shouldn't need to buy $600 worth of memory to run a $30 program! My questions to you: do you use this program? Do you experience this much overhead? Do you consider a 200300% overhead to be acceptable? I can't believe that they never tested the product with a minimal configuration. I can't believe that MacUser recommended this program. Didn't they test it out? Surely I am not the only poor soul with a one meg machine... Comments welcome. Thanks for listening. Robin Goldstone, Systemst Software Specialist California State University, Chico Computer Center robin@csuchico.edu
boz@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (John Boswell) (03/17/89)
I'd reccomend that you get Suitcase II. As well as all the other nifty things it does, it has an option that allows you to show fonts in a font menu in their actual typefaces. Other than the first time the menu is used, the "overhead" is minimal... just my $0.02 ************************************************************************* John Boswell boz@eleazar.dartmouth.edu Dept. of Chemistry boz@dartCMS1.BITNET Dartmouth College, Hangover, Nude Hampster 03755
dce@stan.UUCP (David Elliott) (03/18/89)
In article <1989Mar16.144238.21189@csuchico.uucp> robin@csuchico.uucp (Robin Goldstone) writes: >I recently bought MenuFonts 2.02, a program which displays the font names >listed in the Fonts menu in the acutal font. This program looked handy >I can never remember what many of the fonts look like...It was recommended >by MacUser magazine as well. Cost: $30 from MacWarehouse. > >Well, the software is a total dog! After installation (it is an init) >it causes extensive disk overhead on my system. System startup takes >10 seconds longer, and statup of Word jumps from 6 seconds to 27 seconds. >The overhead even exists on programs that don't use MenuFonts! I can't comment on this specific software, but I can comment on two things: 1. The recommendations in MacUser magazine should never be your only reason to buy something. I bought Icon-It!, which looks good in MacUser (4 or 4.5 mice), but is really unuseable, on the sole basis of the MacUser recommendation. I don't think that magazine reviewers generally have enough time to do a thorough job of using the programs before the reviews are due. 2. SuitcaseII will display font names in their own font, but you can configure it to only do so on request (in fact, that's the default). There is also a Suitcase screen that displays "the quick brown fox..." in the requested font. In general, I find my purchase of SuitcaseII to be the best money I've spent on software so far. -- David Elliott ...!pyramid!boulder!stan!dce "Splish splash, I was rakin' in the cash" -- Eno
fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) (03/19/89)
The overhead you mention for MenuFonts IS damned annoying, even with plenty of RAM cache. But since you have to replace an application's menus, there may not be a way around it. (Could MenuFonts set up its own "personal RAM disk" at boot to hold the fonts from disk"? This would be much better than using general purpose RAM cache which gets rewritten all the time, but would of course have to be defeatable for limited Meg systems). This whole thing really should have been part of Apple system software to begin with. Despite the overhead, I absolutely love this program - so much so that I am lost without it, and just put up with the hassle (I have several friends with 1 meg systems who do the same.) I have had absolutely no software conflicts, which is truly amazing, given how invasive this program must be,and how many different applications and INITS I use. And it is a world better than the slow-as-molasses menu-font capability of Suitcase II (though this will solve your overhead problems if you only feel an occasional need for a "real" font menu). ======================================================================== Richard Fozzard University of Colorado "Serendipity empowers" fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu
cosmos@druhi.ATT.COM (Ronald A. Guest) (03/20/89)
< Various negative comments, problems with MenuFonts 2.02 > Well, I have been using 2.01 for many months and it hasn't caused any of the problems you mention. I have used it on a standard plus and on a II and not noticed any overhead on boot or application startup (meaning the overhead must be <1 second). Ronald A. Guest, Supervisor cosmos@druhi.ATT.COM or att!druhi!cosmos AT&T Bell Laboratories <--- but these are my thoughts, not theirs 12110 N. Pecos St. Denver, Colorado 80234 (303) 538-4896
jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) (03/21/89)
I had also had the problem of slow application opening time when I used MenuFonts 2. Considering I have ~90 different font STYLES in my SE, it was very slow. Opening SuperPaint 1.0 went from ~8 seconds to 27 seconds! Similar retardation of WriteNow 1.0 was apparent. Also, since not all my fonts have a default of 12 point, some of them looked rather strrange. I called them and they said that because MenuFOnts is drawing each font style to appear on the Fonts menu, you just have to wait for it to get done! I found this unacceptable also, so I took MenuFonts off my system. I later upgraded my version of SuitCase to version 2.0 (description of SuitCase is best left to another posting, however, if you want to be able to have more than the Mac limit of fonts (~200) and DAs (15), then you should get SuitCase II!). One of the nice little features they had was being able to see your fonts in their true appearance. You can only see them in 12 point (unlike MenuFonts 2 where you can set the viewing point size), however, your programs will open much more quickly than with MenuFonts2. To use this feature, simply hold down the option key when you pull down the font menu. That's all there is to it! Oh, yeah. You'll also like another program that comes with SuitCase II. It's called "Font Harmony." It will resolve any font conflicts you may have on your system. (Note: A font conflict appears when you select one font, and begin typing but see a font, other than the one expected, apearing on the screen.) I'd suggest looking into SuitCase II. Good Luck. Jim Collymore