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| A Few Words with Mark Douma | | Date Created: 12 Dec, 2004, 08:19 PM |
 We have a very special article today. If you're a regular Font Geek reader, you know I'm a big fan of both Font Finagler and dfontifier (which you can read more about in the Resources section of Font Geek) -- both of these programs (as well as some others which you can see at his website) were created by Mark Douma.
Mark (an independent software developer) has written some inexpensive utilities that fill feature needs that have been missed by some of the larger font software developers. Furthermore, the UIs are easy to understand and the products themselves are easy to use.
As a self proclaimed Font Geek, I've used dfontifier and Font Finagler (formerly known as Font Cache Cleaner) for a while now to help my customers.
I had a chance to catch up with Mark on a lazy Sunday afternoon just after Thanksgiving. I called Mark (who keeps himself remarkably available to his customers) to clarify some information in my dfontifier article. But Mark proved to be such and interesting and open person that I quickly turned our short Q & A into an interview for Font Geek.
Benjamin Levisay: Hello Mark. Thank you for your time today. I hope I'm not pulling you away from anything. |
 Mark Douma: No problem. I was part way finished with the e-mail (you sent me) about dfontifier...
Benjamin: (laugh) Thanks.
Mark: Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I wanted to take some time to answer your question about converting TT fonts to .dfonts.
Benjamin: Thanks. I understand why you'd want to convert a .dfont to a regular TT font. That would allow you to use a .dfont with classic applications -- right? |
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Please see the Utility - dfontifier article in the Resources section of Font Geek for more information about dfontifier.
Mark: That's right. That's the main reason that someone would use dfontifier.
Benjamin: And that's primarily what I use it for as well. So, on to the question that I e-mailed you about. I see that dfontifier also converts TT fonts to .dfont fonts? |
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Mark: Yup. When I originally developed dfontifier, I was primarily after a way to convert .dfonts to regular Mac TrueType fonts, rather than the other way around. One motivating factor was that the application that Apple actually created to do this same thing, called "ForkSwitcher", failed to work properly in later versions of OS X (10.2 and later, I think). Also, I think they've removed it from their site, and it's rather difficult to find these days. (I have the original read-me at http://homepage.mac.com/mdouma46/dfont/ForkSwitcher.html and the download is at http://homepage.mac.com/mdouma46/.cv/mdouma46/Public/ForkSwitcher.sit-link.sit (.sit, ~13 KB).)
ForkSwitcher is a Carbonized Code Fragment Manager (CFM) application, meaning it can theoretically run in both OS 9 (or in OS X in the Classic Environment) and in OS X. Unfortunately, ForkSwitcher doesn't work correctly when trying to use it natively in OS X, and it can crash while trying to convert fonts. It should work okay in OS 9 though, or in OS X in the Classic Environment.
Anyway, I basically just tried to match the way ForkSwitcher worked, which was to convert fonts either way.
Benjamin: OK. That's pretty cool actually. I didn't know about ForkSwitcher. But is there a reason or a use that I could tell the Font Geek readers on why they'd want to convert a TT font to a .dfont? Is there an advantage to doing this in OS X?
Mark: As far as whether there's any advantage or reason in converting a Mac TrueType font suitcase to a .dfont, there are a few reasons. First of all though, like you were saying, it's not required or anything, as OS X can use regular Mac TrueType fonts just fine. I've had some users who seemed to think that they'd need to convert their Mac TrueType fonts to a .dfont font for OS X to be able to use them. That's not true.
Benjamin: That's what I understood as well. Thank you for the confirmation.
Mark: Probably the easiest way to explain this is to tell you what Apple's reasoning is behind the .dfont format.
Benjamin: Great. Please do.
Mark: Well, the vast majority of people using OS X will be running it on Mac OS Extended (HFS+) formatted volumes. HFS+ supports resource forks as well as Mac-specific metadata, like file type and creator codes. In contrast, the core of OS X is based on UNIX, which can have its own volume format known as UNIX File System (UFS). UFS volumes don't support resource forks or HFS+ metadata. Because it's possible (though unlikely) that someone could install OS X on a UFS formatted volume, Apple needed a way to allow the key parts of the OS, which would normally reside in resource forks, to survive in an environment which doesn't support them. The rather simple solution they came up with was to simply switch the fork that the information was in from the resource fork to the data fork. In other words, a data-fork-based resource file. The information is the same; the only difference is which fork it's in. This would allow the core of OS X to function correctly on either type of volume format. So, looking to our specific case, traditional Mac font suitcases are resource-fork-based, and include HFS+ metadata. The solution Apple came up with, then, was to create a data-fork-based suitcase that used a filename extension of '.dfont' in order to identify it.
(As a side note, I've seen many users who are under the impression that Apple is planning to do away with resource forks and HFS+ metadata such as file type and creator codes. I certainly don't think that's the case, rather, the complete opposite is true: as Steve Jobs stated in the WWDC keynote, OS X 10.4 (Tiger) will add resource-fork and HFS+ metadata "awareness" to the UNIX part of OS X.)
Benjamin: So what you are saying is that if a person were running OS X on a UFS formatted volume, then it would be in their best interest to convert their Mac TrueType fonts to .dfonts using dfontifier -- correct?
Mark: Yeah, though Apple highly discourages people from using the UFS format.
Benjamin: Right... I do understand that. But it is a valid use case -- correct?
Mark: Yes, rare, but valid nonetheless. Not that I'd want to encourage people to install OS X on a UFS formatted disk. (laugh)
Benjamin: (laugh) Sure. I understand.
Mark: The other thing that I was thinking of in the case of regular users, provided that they aren't concerned with backwards compatibility with OS 9, is that it would be an easy way to know if a font is a TrueType font or not. I mean, you can essentially think of a .dfont as a TrueType font. Since you can't open up font suitcases like you could in OS 9 to check, it'd be an easy way to help distinguish whether a particular font suitcase represented a TrueType font, or whether it's the font suitcase for a PostScript Type 1 font (which would require the corresponding outline fonts).
Benjamin: Yes. You are right about that. Thanks. Good tip. Speaking of outline fonts... That's sort of what you did with Font Book Helper isn't it? |
 Mark: Yeah... I guess one thing I was after with Font Book Helper was to hopefully bring back the sense of familiarity that users have had with fonts in the past. OS X is a big change in and of itself, and I think fonts can just add to the confusion, as their icons are completely different and unfamiliar (I mean, how many folks will know that a font suitcase has the 'FFIL' (Font File) icon because that's what a font suitcase's file type is, or that a PostScript Type 1 outline font has the 'LWFN' (LaserWriter Font) icon because that's its corresponding file type...) For example, I've come across users that will copy the fonts over from an OS 9 machine where the fonts were in use. When they try that, only the printer fonts are copied over, because OS 9 won't allow the font suitcase to be copied if it's activated or in use. So, the users wonder why in the world these fonts won't work. I mean, or at least I would hope, that if the fonts all had the red A icon like they'd have in OS 9, they'd know that they're not working because they don't have the font suitcase to go with them....
Benjamin: From my own experience, people are very confused about the new icons -- yes. Font Book Helper changes the font icons via Font Book?
Mark: Well, actually, all it really does is just change the icon that's inside Font Book's application bundle to the red one. The Finder (via the Launch Services framework) uses that icon to represent Type 1 outline fonts. It's basically a one-time thing, you run it and your printer fonts are now red, similar to the way they were in OS 9.
Benjamin: OK. That's straight forward enough.
Mark: Yup, it's not too sophisticated. (laugh)
Benjamin: But useful.
Mark: Yeah, I was messing around with some fonts in the Finder, and was just like "Hmm, I wonder, what if I tinted these red..."
Benjamin: That's great. So... I take it from your site that you've got big plans for Font Finagler... Would you care to talk about it at all? |
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Please see the Utility - Font Finagler article in the Resources section of Font Geek for more information about Font Finagler.
Mark: I can't tell you too much at this point. I've got a ton of ideas at the moment, which I hope to gradually implement over time. The next feature that I'm currently working on, though, is the font suitcase-editing part of Font Finagler, which will allow you to open a font suitcase like you could in the Finder in OS 9. The image below shows what the font suitcase window will most likely look like for OS X 10.3 Panther users, with the metal-style window to match the OS X 10.3 Panther Finder. |
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The OS X 10.2 window will most likely have a normal Aqua-style window to match the OS X 10.2 Finder. It'll basically work just like in OS 9, where you can drag and drop into and out of the suitcase, or between suitcases. I guess there's not really a whole lot else I can say about it at the moment, as it's still in rather early development, and a lot of the details still need to be worked out.
Benjamin: Let's talk about you. Tell me about yourself and how did you get started with all of this?
Mark: Well, I actually got my BFA degree in photography and graphic design, so this whole programming thing is quite new to me.
Benjamin: That surprises me. Your stuff is well implemented and the interfaces are easy to understand. It looks (from your work) like you're an old hand at developing software. Have you been programing long?
Mark: Well, I actually wrote my first "application" about a year ago. It was little more than a 10-line AppleScript with a custom icon. At that point, I saw this as more of a hobby than anything else, and was still planning to find a job in graphic design. As the months progressed, though, my curiosity grew, and I moved from plain AppleScript into working with AppleScript Studio. After getting a handle on that, I began to run into its many limitations, and a couple of months ago I decided to try my hand at Cocoa (Objective C). It had a bit of a learning curve, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I enjoy learning new things, and helping others out, so that's helped to keep me motivated to keep at it.
Benjamin: (laugh) That's great. You've certainly caught on fast.
Mark: Yeah. I see a lot of software every day that's written by programmers who can program, but can't necessarily design (a user interface), so I figured it's about time we had a designer who could program. (short laugh) Designing the user interface has proved to be tougher than I expected though.
Benjamin: I agree. I saw something that impressed me the first time I launched dfontifier and saw a place with instruction to drag your fonts too. That hit me as a great UI feature. Kudos!
Mark: Thanks. Yes, I like drag and drop a lot...
Benjamin: So... Are you working with anyone on OEM or CD inclusion with other software/software companies?
Mark: Nah, not yet... still trying to get a handle around the programming thing, I guess...
Benjamin: (laugh) Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about yourself and your products.
Mark: Yeah, no problem. I love sharing that kind of stuff. It's taken me a while to learn it myself, so anything I can do to help others out I enjoy...
Benjamin Levisay: I hope we can do this again in the future. I know Font Geek's readers would enjoy a follow up with you in the new year.
Mark: Sure. You bet.
Benjamin: Have a nice Sunday, Mark.
Mark Douma: Thank you, Benjamin. You too. Please keep in touch.
Please check back here at Font Geek in the future for more articles about Mark and his software.
You can see more of Mark's work at his website: http://homepage.mac.com/mdouma46/
For a complete list of the articles about Mark Douma and his software, please visit Mark's Font Geek Portal page in the Resources section of Font Geek.
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