Fontlinge

Have a look at your stuff

This php-code needs a local apache with php4 and the rights to read files in your fontbase. Maybe it needs php_safemode switched off, I didn't try because it is already off for me.

Fontlinge WebGUI was installed into ~/public_html/fontlinge while fontlinge user installation. You can access it at http://localhost/~yourname/fontlinge/ in your browser. Replace "yourname" with your username. The "~" has to be there.

Please make sure that the database is up to date, else the WebGUI will try to show fonts that have been removed or will not show new fonts that aren't in the database yet.

Open the index.php in your browser via http. You can now look at the previews generated before.

To view only fonts of one category, choose the category you want to see in the "Show category" dropdown.

To browse trough your fonts, use the arrow icons. Click the black arrows to go to next or previous page and the white, snapped off arrows to go to the first or last page.

To search for a font by name, type the name in the "find name" field. Note that this field understands SQL syntax, so you can enter Ari% to search for font names beginning with "Ari" or search for fonts containing "Bold" in their name by searching for %Bold%
Have a look at the "Show category" dropdown because it is also used when searching. So you can for example search for Fonts starting with "Ari", but only in category Sans-Serif.

If you want a detail preview of one of your fonts, click the preview image or the "eyes icon". This will open a window where you can choose between several detail previews.
Please note that these previews are generated in real-time, so it can last some time until the preview image is showed.
If nothing appears, check your webserver logfile and if the gd libs are installed.

You can also look at the file infos of your fontfiles, which can contain things such as the font name in several languages, trademarks, the designer's name or even the story why this font was created. Just click the "i" Icon.

Sorting fonts

You can sort fonts by choosing a destination category in the "Clicking sets category" dropdown and clinging the "four arrows icon".

If you click on the "four arrows icon", the look-kategory for this font will be set immediatly without clicking any submit-buttons!

Yes, that means: Click a little, try a little, and you have written bullshit into your database, and there is no undo.

If you sort your fonts, you should know how to backup your sorting. Have a look at fontlinge_database_assistant, it will save you a lot of time.

If you accept our categories, send us your sortlist. We will provide it to all Fontlinge users.

Note that changing kategories will not move any files around. It just tells the database 'SomefontScript is kategory Handwriting'. This will be written in this font's MySql-field and into the look-database. The next time you --move or --copy a font with this name, it's kategorie will be known.

Font download

Just click the font name to download a .tar.gz file of the selected font.

Security

Please read the security notes below, especially (but not only) if you install Fontlinge on your server! The PHP-scripts should be secure, but we can't guarantee for security.

If you install fontlinge on your server, you should restrict sorting and downloading fonts.
This may be done by protecting the files set.php (for sorting) and download.php (for downloads) with a .htaccess and .htpasswd file.
This way, users who want to sort or download fonts will be prompted for username and password before.

Also, you should protect the preview.php and preview_img.php files (used for detail previews) against abuse - excessive use could lead into a denial of service because generating the preview takes lots of cpu time.

We already install a .htaccess file in your WebGUI directory, just edit it for your needs. Some files that may never be downloaded are protected by default in the .htaccess file.

You need the setting

AllowOverride AuthConfig Limit

for the WebGUI directory in your httpd.conf to make the .htaccess working.

Problems and their solution

If you get a message "Error: No permission to read..." when opening the detail preview or downloading a font, the most probable error is that your Apache user (i. e. wwwrun) has no read access to your font files.
Just run find ~/fontbase/ -type f | xargs chmod 644 to fix the problem or (better) fine-tune the access rights.

If you've set up a very large font size in your browser, maybe the navigation bar will hide the first font. In this case, append ?navbar=100 to the URL (100 is the height of the navigation bar in pixels and may vary).
Browsers that interpret CSS2 should show a little scrollbar in this case.

Customizing the WebGUI

You can customize the WebGUI by writing somefontlinge_custom_*functions into custom.php. functions.php contains templates for these functions.

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