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Font Finagler | dfontifier | Repair Disk Utility's Permissions
Font Finagler icon Font Finagler 1.0

Version 1.0, January 23, 2008
Copyright © 2004-2008, Mark Douma. All rights reserved.

 
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  $10-11 shareware  
 

Font Finagler 0.5.3 is still available for users of Mac OS X 10.2.x (Jaguar): FontFinagler053.dmg (554 KB)

Product Requirements:

  • Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther); Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger); Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard)
  • Font Finagler 1.0 is a free upgrade for all registered users of Font Finagler 0.5.x.
  • Note: Mac OS X 10.2.x (Jaguar) is no longer supported in Font Finagler 1.0; Font Finagler 0.5.3 is still available for those using Mac OS X 10.2.x.

What's new in this version:

Features:

  • Built as a Universal Binary to run natively on both PowerPC Macs (G3, G4, G5) and Intel Macs.
  • Adds support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
  • Adds support for cleaning the font cache files of Adobe, QuarkXPress, and Microsoft applications. The method Font Finagler uses to search for these additional files is both incredibly fast and thorough. Font Finagler can often find up to twice the number of font cache files as other applications: potentially thousands of files in seconds. Try a competing application first, and then use Font Finagler to see what files their application missed.
  • When cleaning the OS X font cache files, Font Finagler now examines your ~/Library/FontCollections/ folder for any corrupt font collection files and will include these in a clean if needed. Corrupt font collection files can cause Font Book to hang or crash at launch, can cause applications to crash, and can prevent applications from opening the standard Font panel.
  • Adds the ability to preserve Font Book’s disabled fonts for the current user when cleaning the OS X font cache files (only applies to Mac OS X 10.4.x and later).
  • Adds the ability to preserve Font Book’s external libraries when cleaning the OS X font cache files (only applies to Mac OS X 10.5.x and later).
  • Font Finagler now only requires authorization (entering an administrator name and password) if it’s absolutely necessary to successfully clean the font cache files.
  • Adds a “Problem Fonts” feature: when you launch Font Finagler, it automatically checks the active fonts on your Mac, and if it identifies any that are known to cause problems, such as Helvetica Fractions or Times Phonetic, it’ll alert you of this. To aid in troubleshooting, Font Finagler provides information about the font’s name, type, location of the font files, and what font manager application (if any) is responsible for activating the font. It also provides the ability to reveal the font files in the Finder and to deactivate the problematic fonts.
  • Adds an “OpenType Font Cache Cleaner” feature that’s designed to clean only the OpenType font cache file and doesn’t require a restart. This feature addresses an OS X font-handling bug present in OS X 10.4.7 - 10.4.10 that affects the use of OpenType fonts in certain applications such as QuarkXPress, Macromedia FreeHand, and possibly others. The bug can cause those applications to crash when they try to work with OpenType fonts, and can also lead to a general instability in other applications as well. Many users have found that using Font Finagler to clean the font cache files seems to alleviate the crashing problems at least temporarily. Once they shutdown the machine and start back up, however, the crashing problem returns until the font cache files are cleaned and the Mac restarted. While a daily cleaning of the font cache files prior to shutdown is a possible workaround, it’s rather inconvenient. That’s where “OpenType Font Cache Cleaner” is designed to come in: it can quickly fix the crashing problems with OpenType fonts without requiring a full restart after cleaning. It can also be run automatically at login. (Note: you can permanently avoid this bug by updating to Mac OS X 10.4.11).
  • Adds a “Font Icon Helper” feature to make PostScript Type 1 printer fonts easier to recognize. (This feature is the same as in my “Font Book Helper” application, but it fixes the AppleScript error/incompatibility that Font Book Helper had with OS X 10.4).
  • Unregistered users can now freely try any and all of Font Finagler’s features, including Administrator-Free Font Cache Cleaner. (Previous versions of Font Finagler required that you be registered in order to use Administrator-Free Font Cache Cleaner).

Bug fixes:

  • Font Finagler is now able to function properly even if the BSD Subsystem is not installed. (In the rare case where a user didn’t have the BSD Subsystem installed, Font Finagler 0.5.3 and prior would hang indefinitely while searching for the font cache files).
  • Clicking the “Stop” button while Font Finagler is searching for the font cache files now works properly. (Font Finagler 0.5.3 was too busy searching for the font cache files to allow the Stop button to be clicked).

Interface enhancements:

  • With font cache files that are listed in the inspection table view of Font Cache Cleaner, you can hold your mouse cursor over the file icon to see the path to the file shown in a tooltip.
  • Adds new high-resolution 512px. x 512px. icons.

Registration enhancements:

  • Adds a separate preference file just for the registration. That way, if you need to disable your Font Finagler preferences for some reason (troubleshooting a crash, etc.), it will still be registered. At the same time, it’s also backwards-compatible: if you register with this version of Font Finagler, previous versions will be registered as well.
  • You can now clearly choose whether to register Font Finagler for the current user (default) or for all users. If you choose to register it for all users, you’ll be prompted for administrator-level authorization to assure that the registration preference file can be saved successfully. (Previous versions of Font Finagler would always attempt to register the application for all users as well as the current user. If the current user didn’t have administrator privileges, however, the attempt to register for all users would fail and wouldn’t provide any direct feedback of such failure).

To Do:

  • A font suitcase-editing feature, which will allow you to open a font suitcase like in OS 9.

Product Description:
If you're having problems like in the image below, it could be caused by corrupt font cache files. What appears to be happening is that incorrect or corrupted encoding vector information is being used when mapping the character codes as input by your keyboard to the glyphs they represent in the problematically cached font.

You can use Font Finagler's Font Cache Cleaner feature to purge these cache files in an attempt to restore normal behavior, and to help rule out a font cache corruption as the sole cause of the problem. If, however, you use Font Cache Cleaner but the problem remains, then it could be caused by a font conflict, by a corrupt or less-than-ideal-quality font, or by an underlying OS X font-handling bug. Try removing fonts to isolate the problematic fonts that are causing this behavior.

License & Registration:
I’ve created Font Finagler as “shareware,” meaning you can download and try it out for free, and, as long as it’s the same as the latest version available on my webpage, can freely share a copy of the software with others.

For unregistered users, some of the features in Font Finagler are always available, while others can be used a limited number of times. You can use the Font Cache Cleaner or Admin-Free Font Cache Cleaner feature to clean a combination of the font cache files up to 40 times. After that, you’ll need to register (purchase a license for) Font Finagler to continue using it. My assumption here is that if you’ve used it that often, then you’ve most likely found it useful and, therefore, ought to register it.

For more information on purchasing a license for Font Finagler, click the purchase button above.

If you have a large order and use a network-management solution such as Apple Remote Desktop, feel free to contact me for an Installer package (".mpkg") for Font Finagler. Also, if you have any questions about pricing, again, feel free to contact me (see the Support section below for contact information).

Font Finagler is "shareware", meaning that it is freely available over the internet or under other conditions described in the included ReadMe.rtfd, subject to certain restrictions of functionality and/or a periodic reminder to pay the "shareware fee". Should the user wish to remove these restrictions or reminder, the "shareware fee" may be charged under the conditions indicated in the included ReadMe.rtfd in exchange for a "serial number" transmitted to the user. The user must treat this "serial number" as confidential and not sell, transmit, or reveal it to any other party. This fee may be refunded only if the user demonstrates, to my satisfaction, that entering the "serial number" into the latest version of Font Finagler, as published on my website, does not remove the restrictions. I reserve the right to disable, without notice, any "serial number" published on a website or otherwise made available to anyone but the original user.

Support:
If you have a question or concern regarding Font Finagler, feel free to instant message me at MarkDouma46 or to email me at mdouma46@mac.com.

If you could instant message me, that would be preferred, as it's much more conducive to troubleshooting. (If I don't answer, I'm most likely away from my computer. If you add me to your buddy list, you'll be able to see my status. If I'm not around, just leave an email address in your message and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible). If you've never used iChat or AIM before, then don't worry about it, email is fine.

So what exactly are these files you're deleting?

Note: I know the information shown below about font cache file paths is woefully outdated. For potential legal reasons, however, I'll refrain from removing it just yet. (I'll update this statement as more information becomes available).

OS X 10.3.x Panther Font Cache files:

System Domain:

/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS.System.fcache
/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATSServer.FODB_System
/System/Library/Caches/fontTablesAnnex

Local Domain:

/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/501/Classic.fcache
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/501/Local.fcache
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/User.fcache
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/Classic.fodb
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/Local.fodb
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/User.fodb
/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/FondResourceCache

OS X 10.2.x Jaguar Font Cache files:

System Domain:

/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.FCacheSystemDomain
/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATSServer.FODB_System
/System/Library/Caches/fontTablesAnnex

Local Domain:

/Library/Caches/com.apple.FCacheLocalDomain

User Domain:

/Users/~/Library/Caches/com.apple.FCacheClassicDomain
/Users/~/Library/Caches/com.apple.FCacheUserDomain
/Users/~/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATSServer.0050E4C50426.FODB_Classic
/Users/~/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATSServer.0050E4C50426.FODB_Local
/Users/~/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATSServer.FODB_User

KEY:

FontDatabase files: Smallest of all font cache files; seem to simply be a list of the names of font files for the corresponding domain. They don't seem to contain any information about the internal structure of fonts.

FontCache files: The FontCache/.fcache files contain an XML property-list-style list of "FontFamilies", "FontList", and "FontMap". These files contain information about the internal information contained in the font files.

fontTablesAnnex: Largest and most significant of all font cache files; contains the character encodings/mappings ('cmap' entries) for all of the cached fonts on your system. This is one of the more significant font cache files that can lead to "garbled text syndrome".

FondResourceCache: This file is a cache file for the synthesized 'FOND' resources of any OpenType (.otf) font files you have on your system