I do have a problem where “frequently-used fonts” (in this case, my monospace fonts for Terminal.app) are listed as “active” in FontBase, but not in Terminal or, for example, TextEdit.app.
I think I read here advice that these fonts should actually be stored in the “System Fonts Folder” but it wasn’t clear as to whether this was a Windows topic.
If it’s the case that FontBase isn’t meant to manage the basic fonts that are needed for some of these system applications (which I can understand), it’d be helpful to have some guidance along these lines. In particular, should one use the Font Book.app included with macOS for this? Exactly what folders should be used for these fonts? Are there any other criteria for not having FontBase manage fonts that are otherwise used everywhere/all the time outside of specific font-sensitive/creative apps?
(I’ve been using FontBase for several months, and finding that, for example, Terminal.app has replaced fonts managed by FontBase with some random monospace font is fairly recent behavior. If in fact this is a bug and it’s expected that I shouldn’t really have to worry about my “basic fonts”, I’m happy to help with a bug report. This is macOS Ventura 13.3.1; I previously did have Fex installed but I’ve verified it’s not running.)
Hello @kmp, thank you for the post and welcome to the forum
The topic you’ve described is relevant for both Windows and Mac computers.
This seems to only happen when one adds fonts into FontBase that were already installed in the standard OS-specific way. Most likely what confuses the Terminal app and other system apps is having two instances of the same font active at the same time, i.e. having the installed font active, as installed fonts are permanently active by their very nature, as well as adding this same font into FontBase and activating it there.
So you’re right, it’s better to refrain from adding the standard system fonts folder into FontBase to avoid confusing the OS in this way.
According to Apple’s support website the system fonts folders for Mac are “/Library/Fonts/” and “~/Library/Fonts/”.
Hope this helps,
Yuriy
FontBase Dev Team
I appreciate the suggestion, I think I’ve cleared up the issue.
I’m guessing that I should just remain blissfully ignorant of the system font folders, which I’ll do now that I’ve verified that there’s nothing in them that isn’t on Apple’s list of supplied fonts. It also sounds like staying away from the macOS Font Book app is a good idea as well.
