Lose Your Mind Development

We have a new product! Virtual Font Folder 1.0.

Virtual Font Folder is a small utility that will watch a user-designated folder for file changes. If one or more TrueType fonts are added to the watched folder, VFF will copy the files to the Windows\Fonts folder and install them for use. And if fonts are removed from the watched folder, VFF will uninstall them as well.

And how, exactly, is this useful?

I’ve had several Printer’s Apprentice users ask if we have any tools for managing fonts in a server environment. System administrators in graphic shops need to make sure that the same fonts are available on all the networked workstations. This utility is a first step in a solution for this problem.

Here is an example of how VFF works. A small design firm has 10 workstations connected to a file server. The file server has a shared volume named \\fileserver\fonts. Now the workstations are all running VFF. It sits silently in the tray area, watching the fonts file share for activity. The system administrator purchases several new fonts (licensed, of course, for multiple workstations) and copies the TTF files to the \\fileserver\fonts share. VFF detects the new files, copies them to the windows\fonts folder and installs them. The administrator has distributed and installed batch of fonts to 10 PC by simply copying them to a folder on the file server.

Complete information about Virtual Font Folder can be found on the web site – http://www.loseyourmind.com/vff10.asp .

One important note – VFF is our first product built using Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0. You do need the .NET 2.0 runtime installed on your PC to use Virtual Font Folder. If it is not installed, the VFF Setup program will download and install it for you. But I recommend downloading and installing the runtime first. Then install Virtual Font Folder. You can get the .NET 2.0 runtime from Microsoft via this link.

Screenshots:

Main Window	Options
Tray Icon & Menu	About screen

As always, I am interested in hearing your comments about Virtual Font Folder. Comment via the blog or send your thoughts to helpdesk at loseyourmind.com. — Bryan