Aero Taskforce

janzich wrote on June 3, 2008, 2:56pm

Also add the option to preview fonts.

ducky wrote on June 3, 2008, 5:23pm

Yeah, having to use the font viewer isn't fun.

deeper2k wrote on June 3, 2008, 5:50pm

It will be changed in Win7 ;) I mean it has already been changed :P

agiorgio wrote on June 3, 2008, 6:53pm

This should have been fixed a decade ago :)

Simon wrote on June 3, 2008, 7:55pm

Yes, it's old and inconsistent. But that's because it's deprecated. Think about it: when was the last time you actually had to use it? You've been able to just drag and drop fonts into the font folder to install them since Windows 95. In Vista, apparently you can also right click on a font and click "Install". There's no reason to ever use the dialogue box.

(You could argue that having the dialogue box in the OS at all, even if you never have to use it, is still bad because any normal user could accidentally come across it and be offended by the Windows3.1ness. But this isn't actually true: the only way to get to it is through the old menu bar, which is essentially deprecated and not even shown by default. The only people who enable the menu bar are people who like the "old-style" (i.e. non-Vista) way of doing things anyway...)

MrDan wrote on June 3, 2008, 7:58pm

Wasn't this supposely been removed according to Long's blog?

longzheng wrote on June 4, 2008, 2:44am

@MrDan: Yeah, but I haven't gotten around to doing the status :)

rm20010 wrote on June 4, 2008, 3:21am

Even everyday users know how to right click in the folder. The option 'Install New Font' is right there, which brings up this dialog. The old menu bar isn't the only way to invoke this dialog.

rm20010 wrote on June 4, 2008, 3:22am

Also, preview sort of works: Use the Preview pane.

eried wrote on June 7, 2008, 6:52am

It's even the same dialog of Windows 3.11:
http://erwin.ried.cl/inc/image.php?imagen=img/a...1.png&formato=html

cosmin2007 wrote on June 7, 2008, 2:54pm

Extremely bad, and I think inconsistencies in the UI work come from bad group workflow management. This dialog is the worst example in my opinion, and it's not even getting skinned !
There are users which do not know another way of installing fonts, such as right-clicking the font file and choosing Install.

I N C O N S I S T E N T W O R K , M I C R O S O F T !

thda wrote on June 7, 2008, 9:36pm

Ok, while I totally agree that this dialog should be redesigned or removed, I DO NOT agree that this particular dialog is the biggest concern from a UX perspective.

Very few normal users add fonts manually, and if they do, they generally do it only once, right after installing Windows.

There are MANY other issues in Windows, which users face every single day, so could we _PLEASE_ try to vote for those issues instead?

And, if I understand this correctly, this issue has already been fixed, so could we please just move on now?

michael.dobrofsky wrote on June 8, 2008, 12:59am

How about create a spiffy Font Manager for Windows rather than trying to turn Windows into a software library, i.e. Movie Makers, DVD Makers, Email Clients, etc. Font management should come before all that stuff, MS.

TheNetAvenger wrote on June 8, 2008, 9:54am

This dialog just needs to go. If people are still using this to add fonts, they deserve it, as I didn't even realize it was still in the OS.

Why? - Open folder, drag fonts to Font folder, much simplier and more consistent, and it has worked this way since WIndows95. This dialog is a throwback to Win3.1/NT 3.X Era and just needs to be removed.


Other UI notes that are good and are not obvious based on the posts above.

• If you open a folder with fonts, use the Preview layout of the folder to see any font clicked on in the Preview pane. (You can also double click a font for a Quick Preview)

• Adding and installing fonts should not be a daily thing. People come from the Win95 era or the OS X/Mac world and try to manage fonts. This is NOT NEEDED, especially on WinXP or Vista. As you can install 10,000 fonts WITHOUT any system performance reduction. The registry handles the massive font list and caches it without any being noticed.

(Yes some Techs will claim extra fonts make the computer slower to boot. This is not true with XP or Vista. The only time having 10,000 fonts installed can cause a performance issues is a first run of an application that caches previews of all the fonts or enumerates all the fonts when the application is loaded. Simply write the developer and complain, as this is NOT the way software should handle fonts on Windows. When it is doing stuff like this, it is usually software that is popular in the Mac world and the developers don't know better.) On Win3.1, Win9X and Win2k there were issues with large amounts of fonts being installed, these were elminated with WinXP and Vista, trust me on this.

So stop 'managing' fonts on Vista, just install everything you have or as you get new fonts, and forget the uninstall/install crap that OS X users HAVE to do because of Aqua/DIsplay PDF font handling abilities.


Font UI issues that do need to be addressed:
1) When installing fonts and the current font exists, add a check box that remembers your last selection, so you can just tell it to either overwrite or ignore the rest of the fonts you are installing. Currently you have to click the dialog for every font that is already installed, very annoying and we tried to get this fixed in the Vista beta but were too late.

2) Font Preview Printing: Windows 7 should have a simple printable font book creation utility from the Fonts Folder. Just a simple print selected fonts as Font Book, with options for Sample Text and format of Showing ABCD...etc.

3) Font Families - VIewing/Grouping, etc. WIndows already undrestands font families and substitutions, we need a simple UI addition to the Fonts folder that allows the Font Family Type to be selectable for grouping/stacking fonts. This why professionals that do have 10,000 fonts can look through a specific family. (This should be available in the Font Selection Dialog as well.)


(Site Mods, if you want ideas like this to be submitted separately as ideas instead of in conversation on a related topic, just let me know.)

delf wrote on June 8, 2008, 3:31pm

I agree. The dialog just needs to go.

I think this is just one of those thinkgs that honestly got overlooked by Microsoft. How many times have you ever manually added a font?

My graphic designers at work do this semi-frequently, and this little dialog box generated a help desk call. The user had the fonts folder copied over to their desktop, and she did not know that she needed to browse to c:\users\[username]\desktop to get to that path. In order to provide consistency through the UI, this dialog needs to be updated.

longzheng wrote on June 8, 2008, 4:03pm

Changed status from [Under review] to [Fixed]

purefusion wrote on June 10, 2008, 6:11am

I do want better font organization though, with font-grouping, ability to turn fonts on and off, etc:

http://www.aerotaskforce.com/view/400

Ensign Joe wrote on June 10, 2008, 9:59am

Well in Windows Longhorn (the Alphas from Vista before the reset, the 40xx builds) this dialog has already been replaced by a "ordinary Open dialog", but when they decided to reset and throw one of the best developments ever into the bin, it seemed to me they forgot this dialog (with some other progress as well)...

tino wrote on June 10, 2008, 11:45am

MS should implement font organization features into the Explorer. If you are in a font folder, it would switch to a "Font Explorer" (like the Games Explorer or the Add/Remove Programs Explorer). Enable the preview pane to see previews of selected fonts, different view modes (with "thumbnails" of the fonts) and the ability to sort them like you can sort and group and stack music in a music folder.

On the command bar, there should be buttons for Import, New Group and so on (the same way as in the Contacts folder).

No need for an extra app, IMO.

crestind wrote on June 10, 2008, 2:34pm

Problem is, instead of removing the dll, they probably just left it there along with all the other old junk instead of deleting the file.

User Interface Designer wrote on June 11, 2008, 3:16pm

i still don't understand why they use the old browse tree instead i think a button to browse with the windows dialog will be better and more free coz the most of designers have the fonts organized into multi folders so you can give us the option to be more user friendly

Thanks,
Mohammed Alaa

Michael Mc wrote on June 11, 2008, 6:00pm

If this is fixed in Windows 7, can we see a preview at all?

tino wrote on June 12, 2008, 1:07pm

Michael Mc: It was removed from 7, so you would see an empty screen ;)

I know that there was a debate inside the shell team (was posted on the shell revealed forums), if they should remove/rewrite or leave this dialog in Vista. We all know the result but interesting was, that there was a new solution created my an employee in his/her free time. Maybe we will see this new font management thing in 7?

iknowwhatismyname wrote on June 12, 2008, 10:39pm

true. but so unless.
low low priority

thenonhacker wrote on June 14, 2008, 2:06pm

1. I agree with the suggestion.

2. I hate this dialog.

3. Fortunately, I can simply drag new fonts into the Control Panel Fonts folder and get the same effect!

.Chris wrote on August 15, 2008, 7:10pm

I would love to see some sort of font management in windows 7. a place where I can view the fonts the way they are presented.

ruben wrote on September 7, 2008, 11:21pm

I can't believe this has stayed in Windows for so long. Just seems like the forgotten child of the 3.1 era ;)

.Chris wrote on September 16, 2008, 6:10am

http://toastytech.com/guis/chicago2.html

go all the way to the bottoum. a newer font mananger was found in a windows 95 beta but was removed!