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| Review - Alsoft's MasterJuggler 3 | | Date Created: 24 Oct, 2004, 04:03 PM |
 In my world of fixing Macintosh related software problems for the professional market, I can tell you without hesitation that Alsoft is a company that makes my life easier. DiskWarrior is something that I almost couldn't do without.
Let me tell you a little about these folks (taken from their website)...
Alsoft, Inc. was founded in 1984 by two former Apple employees to develop and market MacExpress®, the first programming framework for the Macintosh.
Alsoft is a leading developer of award-winning utility software that enhances the Mac OS. The company currently produces DiskWarrior, MasterJuggler, PlusOptimizer, DiskExpress Pro, PlusMaker, and PlusMaximizer.
Since the beginning, their line of award-winning utilities has been well known and respected throughout the Macintosh community. Many of their products were the first of their kind, and most have features that remain Alsoft exclusives to this day.
The text above is taken directly from their website. And I agree with them about the respect that they have with the Macintosh community. Before I do anything else, I'd like to acknowledge their contribution to the Macintosh community. |
 I say all of this as a preface to one of the most difficult reviews (of MasterJuggler 3 from Alsoft) that I have had to write. The truth is that I like the product a lot conceptually. And I appreciate the company, the support, and many of the exclusive features. But the most current version of the program is NOT a great offering from Alsoft and certainly NOT a competitive choice for font management.
I used MasterJuggler Pro in 1996 when I worked as the IT guy at Knitter's Magazine -- just after throwing away the most current version of Suitcase, and just before discovering ATM Deluxe. We were blown away that a font management program could help us figure out which fonts were problematic before we used them. The Font Guardian feature is something that has worked so well that I believe many other font management companies copied the concept. And it has survived today in the most recent version of MasterJuggler 3 (released in July 2003). |
 MasterJuggler 3 unfortunately has more cons than pros. But in the interest of fairness, I'm going to stick to the format that I have been using. Let's take a look at some of the most notable ones...
I like the MasterJuggler 3 UI. It is by far the best I have ever seen.
I dislike that choosing some of the screens either doesn't work or stalls the program.
I like the Font Guardian feature in MasterJuggler. It's the "right" concept for a font manager.
I dislike that the Font Guardian doesn't seem to work as well as it did in earlier versions. It misses problems that I have found using other/competitive software.
I like that there is Classic support.
I dislike that there appears to be no auto-activation capabilities.
I like the company's tech support and sales department. They have always been helpful.
I dislike there there is not a demo version of the program for download and evaluation. |
I think that if your font management needs are fairly small and simple that this program might work OK for you. It allows you to do some of what a good font management program should do -- to not have all of your fonts on at once -- using manual activation functionality. It's competitively priced. And it's easy enough to understand.
If you have serious or professional font management needs, I'm not going to recommend this program except to people who are using no font management software and/or own a previous copy of MasterJuggler and qualify for the upgrade price.
All in all I like the company and the MasterJuggler concept, but not the program itself. It needs to have some of the bugs worked out of it and it needs to have some features added to it to make it more competitive with it's competition. When (not if) it does, it will be a solid choice.
You will see below that I have given MasterJuggler 3 a rating of 3 out of 5. I actually think, due to some of it's problems, that it deserves a rating closer to a 2.5 out of 5. But I'm adding .5 for style, the great interface, and because I'm optimistic about the product and the company. |
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Software Developer........................................Alsoft
Current Version...............................................v3.0.3
License Type.....................................................Commercial
Full Version Price............................................$89.95
Upgrade Version Price...................................$49.95
System Requirements.....................................Mac OS X 10.1 or later
Type of Software.............................................font management
Font Geek Rating............................................3 out of 5 |
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Bottom Line Comparison: MasterJuggler 3 is, in my opinion, the weakest of the "big four" font management programs. It is not as good as Font Reserve or Suitcase. (Font Reserve compares very closely to Suitcase which is also now made by Extensis.) Of these two, I think Font Reserve is probably a little better. All of these, in my opinion, are a great deal better than Apple's own Font Book. But none of these programs work as well as the most current version of Insider Software's FontAgent Pro.
For a more in-depth comparison please see the article named "Font Management Shoot Out" in the Font Management section of Font Geek. |
An Invitation To Alsoft
To the good folks at Alsoft... If you have a new release or a beta version of MasterJuggler that you would like me to review (as well as any other literature) that addresses some of these problems, please contact me. I would be happy to try out any new release and post an updated review if warranted.
Also to the good folks at Alsoft... I hope you keep working on this. I look forward to trying future versions of this software and getting the same great results that I have gotten from some of your other software. |
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