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Today I downloaded and installed the FontBase (FB) application. It is a Font manager.

The idea behind how this application works is that the user adds fonts to the application and controls the activation and deactivation of the fonts they want to use, without the need to load all the fonts even if they will not be used.

My problem is that during use FontBase behaves differently:
1- It loads all the fonts that have been added to the application, regardless of whether they have been activated or not.
2- It does not download all these fonts. Even if the application is turned off, the fonts remain available for use in GIMP.

After installing FontBase, GIMP is informed via Edit - Preferences - Folders - Fonts of the FB application path, which in my case is: C:\Users\Users\FontBase

Possibly the inclusion of the path added above is what causes the Fonts to be loaded regardless of whether they have been activated or not (here is my assumption). However, as far as I know, this is the correct way to proceed, telling GIMP where to access the fonts on FB)

Considering the behavior of the FB app as described in 1 and 2, there is no point in using it as it does not serve its purposes.


But I suspect this problem is only happening to me/my version of GIMP.
Maybe some incompatibility with the portable version?

Does anyone here use this app and can help me?

The following information is available on the APP website:



As I explained. Nothing stated above happens in my case.


Thanks for any clarification!

(04-14-2024, 06:26 AM)Krikor Wrote: [ -> ]Does anyone here use this app and can help me?

The following information is available on the APP website:

"All the fonts are added to FontBase in an inactive state. To activate a font, you need to click on the circle at the left side of the font's name."

"All the fonts activated in FontBase are active while FontBase is open. When you close the app, all the fonts are deactivated: this way you can easily deactivate all the fonts you have used during your work"

As I explained. Nothing stated above happens in my case.


Thanks for any clarification!

Always willing to give things a try.  I installed this twice (in a Win 10 VM) both as for everyone and for user only.

Neither of those worked out-of-the-box for me, but I did get it working by setting a new root folder https://fontba.se/learn/root-folder and adding that to the Gimp fonts paths.

[attachment=11662]

Fontbase certainly copied chosen fonts into the folder and they show up in Gimp

[attachment=11663]

However activating / deactivating has no effect here. I think that is what you found.  
You might as well use a two pane file manager and move files in-and-out of the Gimp fonts folder or more automated Ofnuts addonCollectionManager.py plugin does that for you.
Still a problem with Windows, once a font file is active, very difficult to delete it straight away. Usually takes at least a log-out or a Windows restart.

Edit: Just tried out the linux appimage version and apart from the annoying add when started up ($3 a month, that is enough to stop me using it). It works. I suppose it is for those who like all those google fonts. As an alternative you can download the whole google fonts set, although it is a big download.

Did you remove the 2 other font folders in the GIMP's Preferences?
1 folder from the system and 1 folder from your account... GIMP certainly load those 2 as well by default, if so this "FontBase" has no uses because GIMP will fetch those 2 folders if you do not remove them. (copy/paste the path of those folders on a text file, to not struggle getting them back just in case)

On Linux I use Font manager for years, it's a very good one but exclusive for Linux,
On the other hand for Windows I did some search and found FontMatrix > https://github.com/fontmatrix/fontmatrix it's FLOSS did you tried it? You can activate de-activate fonts as seen on their screenshot.

(04-14-2024, 09:40 AM)rich2005 Wrote: [ -> ]I suppose it is for those who like all those google fonts. As an alternative you can download the whole google fonts set, although it is a big download.

For google font I use TypeCatcher > https://github.com/andrewsomething/typecatcher you can browse the google fonts before installing

(04-14-2024, 09:40 AM)rich2005 Wrote: [ -> ]Always willing to give things a try.  I installed this twice (in a Win 10 VM) both as for everyone and for user only.

Neither of those worked out-of-the-box for me, but I did get it working by setting a new root folder https://fontba.se/learn/root-folder and adding that to the Gimp fonts paths.

Fontbase certainly copied chosen fonts into the folder and they show up in Gimp

However activating / deactivating has no effect here. I think that is what you found.  
You might as well use a two pane file manager and move files in-and-out of the Gimp fonts folder or more automated Ofnuts addonCollectionManager.py plugin does that for you.
Still a problem with Windows, once a font file is active, very difficult to delete it straight away. Usually takes at least a log-out or a Windows restart.

Edit: Just tried out the linux appimage version and apart from the annoying add when started up ($3 a month, that is enough to stop me using it). It works. I suppose it is for those who like all those google fonts. As an alternative you can download the whole google fonts set, although it is a big download.

What intrigues me is that in the tutorial I watched about this FB, it worked correctly in the Windows environment.

At least that's what I assume from the images (shoot screens).
In 1, the fonts Actor.ttf and Adamina.ttf are selected - Note that there are other fonts available in the same folder (Acme, Acionica, Advent PRO, etc.).

However in 2, you can see that only the selected fonts were loaded into GImp! Fonts such as Acme and Advent Pro are not among the fonts displayed by Gimp.
[attachment=11667][attachment=11668]
So I don't understand why it doesn't work for me?!

(04-14-2024, 10:19 AM)PixLab Wrote: [ -> ]Did you remove the 2 other font folders in the GIMP's Preferences?
1 folder from the system and 1 folder from your account... GIMP certainly load those 2 as well by default, if so this "FontBase" has no uses because GIMP will fetch those 2 folders if you do not remove them. (copy/paste the path of those folders on a text file, to not struggle getting them back just in case)

On Linux I use Font manager for years, it's a very good one but exclusive for Linux,
On the other hand for Windows I did some search and found FontMatrix > https://github.com/fontmatrix/fontmatrix it's FLOSS did you tried it? You can activate de-activate fonts as seen on their screenshot.

No, I did not remove the other two fonts folders in GIMP's Preferences. 

These folders are system fonts and other basic fonts that I have installed and will always be using. It is desirable that they are always loaded whenever GIMP is started.

The fonts that I want to use with the font manager are those that I will use in specific projects, that I will not always need to use but that I intend to have on hand if necessary.

Therefore, they do not always need to be loaded at the time of GIMP startup. These fonts are in a separate folder and are not loaded into the operating system.
In this case, they are the same fonts that I use with the Ofnuts Addon.

In my case they are in the fonts_storage folder. (see image below)


This option you indicated seems interesting (FontMatrix), but I would really prefer to make this FB work with my GIMP.

(04-14-2024, 11:39 AM)PixLab Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-14-2024, 09:40 AM)rich2005 Wrote: [ -> ]I suppose it is for those who like all those google fonts. As an alternative you can download the whole google fonts set, although it is a big download.

For google font I use TypeCatcher > https://github.com/andrewsomething/typecatcher you can browse the google fonts before installing  

What sparked my interest in this Font Manager is the ability to preview fonts, making my choice easier, as well as being able to organize fonts in the most diverse ways.


Gentlemen, thank you for your attention!

Perhaps the fact that FB comes with the 'Auto-activate missing fonts (Creative Cloud)' option activated is the reason for the problem reported here.

But there is no way to disable this option.

[attachment=11669][attachment=11670]

Oh.. I understood now, the fonts you need some time will be available only when the software is on, when it's off it will not clutter GIMP, that's cool  

(04-14-2024, 07:10 PM)Krikor Wrote: [ -> ]But there is no way to disable this option.

They did it on purpose, they want you to be "Awesome"  

[attachment=11673]

Awesome is a subscription to an "additional set of features"

[attachment=11672]

(04-15-2024, 01:20 AM)PixLab Wrote: [ -> ]Oh.. I understood now, the fonts you need some time will be available only when the software is on, when it's off it will not clutter GIMP, that's cool  

(04-14-2024, 07:10 PM)Krikor Wrote: [ -> ]But there is no way to disable this option.

They did it on purpose, they want you to be "Awesome"  



Awesome is a subscription to an "additional set of features"

I agree with you. At least that's the impression I got from my experience with FB.

However, disabling the functionality to select which fonts I want to activate or deactivate for each use session makes this application of no use to me since this is exactly how GIMP already works in its native form.

I then tried trying FontMatrix (as per your suggestion).
I downloaded it, unzipped it, and stopped there. I couldn't understand how to install this application. 

I searched with Google, YT, but without success. So I gave up.

Regardless of FontBase usability, open or not open. I just can not get it to work with Gimp in Win10.

The linux appimage FontBase works by copying / deleting active fonts to my home fonts folder ~/.fonts

I expected the Win version to do the same. It has to be something in the system fonts locations that Gimp recognises, like C:\Users\user-id\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts , or in the Gimp fonts path(s) and copy / delete there. Copies ok but no delete.

When it comes to the linux version, looks almost like spyware (I know free means data-scrapping but...). Puts folders in home / .config / ... I think, I will give this a miss.

FontMatrix , like Gimp it is originally linux but it is 15 years old. Well past its sell-by date

(04-15-2024, 08:30 AM)Krikor Wrote: [ -> ]I then tried trying FontMatrix (as per your suggestion).
I downloaded it, unzipped it, and stopped there. I couldn't understand how to install this application. 

I searched with Google, YT, but without success. So I gave up.

There > https://github.com/fontmatrix/fontmatrix/releases there is an .exe of the version 0.6, it's a 32-bit but it should work on a 64-bit machine..? but I don't know Windows

[attachment=11680]