*These potentially require collaboration with Adobe
Issue:
Fontbase users want Adobe Fonts integrated into Fontbase,
Fonts in Fontbase have little to no measures in place to prevent illegal font duplication (Even if they did, little guarantee Adobe would agree)
Adobe does not want to risk Adobe fonts that they pay for (with Type foundry license agreements) being easily duplicated and distributed
Rationale/Use Cases: (Fontbase users, if not listed, add in thread )
- See what Adobe fonts are activated (w/out opening CC App, Web, etc.)
- Activate/Deactivate Adobe fonts**
- Auto-activate/Deactivate Adobe fonts
- Compare Adobe Font to non-Adobe Font within Fontbase
- Central location to view all your favorite fonts (personal sorting)
- Sort Adobe Fonts into custom collections (personal or/& work sorting)
- Use the Fontbase “Super Search” to find the BEST font for the job from all available sources ( Local/Open source on Cloud/Paid for on Cloud)
- Easily steal and illegally Distribute all Adobe Fonts through Fontbase’s unsecured, unhidden Root Folder***
** “Activate/Deactivate Adobe fonts” will likely never happen, Adobe is a for-profit company that relies on 2 things. 1 Being the Industry standard for a lot of things and 2 having enough extras/bonuses/uses to keep people paying their subscription.
For Example, If I only ever use Illustrator I could switch to Serif’s “Affinity Designer” for a 1 time ~$50 fee… but i’d lose access to Adobe fonts, No more included Professional PDF viewer, no “free” portfolio website, no free Canva alternative (Adobe Express formerly known as Adobe Spark)
*** I am not endorsing the distribution of adobe fonts, simply stating their most valid and clear concern/reason for not allowing the full integration that Fontbase has with other fonts with their “Adobe fonts”.
Current State + Breakdown:
Currently individuals have to pay for Adobe software, type all the Glyphs out, outline all the glyphs, import the glyphs to specialized software, figure out the font metrics, and export imperfect font replicas. The work involved alone is enough to turn people away that would even consider trying to distibute Adobe Fonts. Now compare that with: use file explorer/finder, navigate to fontbase root folder, click, copy, paste, done.
Adobe has Auto-Activation for Adobe fonts in Adobe programs (File Handling in Preferences) and it works quite well (sometimes it can be a little slow)
With what I said about Adobe being a for Profit company, one can deduct that Adobe won’t self cannibalize it’s “exclusive” extra/bonus offerings like activating/deactivating adobe fonts
So that pretty much rules out items 2, 3, and 8. Sad but True 
Functional Features/Solutions, Implementation + Assumptions:
Disclaimer, Im no developer/coder, my limited knowledge gives me an idea of items that may seem feasible to the untrained eye, but be clearly not possible to a pro. I am also NOT a lawyer and any approach outlined below should be evaluated by a legal professional to determine liability, if any
See what Adobe fonts are activated - Adobe keeps an up to date list of which fonts it offers as part of its “Adobe Fonts”. The catalog is visible to all on the web whether you have an Adobe ID or not. It would not be hard to make the existing Adobe Plugins “read”/reference which fonts are locally available from the dropdown in your Adobe App(s), Compare them to a current list of “Adobe Fonts” and display active or inactive Icons in Fontbase for those fonts. Either only in list form (no glyphs) or visual (see below for contingent feature)
Compare Adobe Font to non-Adobe Font within Fontbase - Adobe manages to “safely” show their fonts through their fonts.adobe website. With the use of an API or perhaps just a lot of code/work Fontbase can display the fonts on fontbase without ever having to have a local copy on your device. This would force this specific feature to be “Online only” but it would be better than no feature at all.
5 & 6 (Sort Adobe fonts into custom collection + adding to favorites)
For practicality and user friendliness, this feature essentially requires both features mentioned directly above. No font file is actually needed to say “Font XYZ” is a favorite or belongs in “XYZ company fonts” Collection. Prompts could trigger when activating folders with Adobe fonts to “Ensure Adobe’s auto activation feature is turned on in your Adobe Application or Activate “XYZ Font” on Adobe Fonts” (with a button to dismiss and a checkbox to never show again)
Use “Super Search” on Adobe Fonts in Fontbase app
This one I imagine would be by far the hardest to implement but to me is honestly the most valuable thing that comes out of having Adobe Fonts integrated with Fontbase in the first place. ( I tend to work for firms with their own font libraries so Adobe Fonts is not as crucial to me when working as part of a firm, one simply adds the fonts to Fontbase to the library of fonts and use super search to see which of our fonts best suits a project) When freelancing those same vast libraries are not available to me and so I rely on Adobe Fonts to expand my font library from just my personal collection and open source Google fonts. It adds time to have to explore Adobe Fonts separately from the fonts I have in Fontbase and funnily enough the closest thing they have to “Super Search” is “Properties” which is not even in the same realm of useful. (See screenshots below)
Depending on how Super Search actually works I could see two ways of making it available for Adobe Fonts ( reliant on visual display of Adobe Fonts in Fontbase being added/allowed). If it works purely on assessing Visual Characteristics (the way online Font identifiers work) it may be possible to use the aforementioned API / “Lots of code”. If it requires actual font data (font files themselves) to interpret/ analyze the fonts then perhaps by purchasing an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription and maintaining it Fontbase could create files where the necessary data is located in a useable format for Super Search to reference. The reference files or adobe fonts would never get shared or packaged with the Fontbase program and all necessary communication for Super Search to work on users computers could happen in the same way that Adobe displays all their fonts on the web. This would also make this an “Online Only” feature
