Alsoft MasterJuggler - 3.0.4

I have been using this app for over a year now and I must say that it is a great Font manager app. I have had no problems out of it.

just my 2¢.

The previous version just did not work in TIGER.

So Alsoft told me to do a terminal edit.

What the?

You guys wrote the programme so get it right.

Sure hope this version works.


I have ALL the other ALSOFT products ( going back into OS 7.5 ) and their programmes are fantistic. Except MasterJuggler in OS X TIGER.

I still recommend this product.

Does MJ offer auto-font-activation like Suitcase does?
I heard a long time ago that it doesn't but it would be a pain to have to load fonts manually everytime, especially when Suitcase will do it for you.

and I completely agree. A demo version is a NOT a "would be nice" thing, it is an "absolutely required" thing.

I wrote to Alsoft a few weeks ago, bemoaning (a) the lack of a demo and (b) the woefully lacking information on their Website (e.g., inadequate screen shots of the MasterJuggler interface). After several days, one of the Alsoft team wrote me back, apologizing for the lack of a demo, and then suggesting I could forward all my questions to him and he would try to address my pre-sales concerns. Yeah, sure--as if even a thousand questions and answers could be considered a viable alternative to actually seeing the product in action (not to mention I am simply not going to take the time to try to write up such a list of questions). While i believe he was sincerely trying to help, it was obvious to me that Alsoft just does not get it.

HEY, ALSOFT: allocate some development resources to create a demo version! There is NO WAY IN #@*! anyone in their right mind would pay for an "all sales final" product without knowing what it is they are buying. Do you LIKE losing sales?

Hopefully, if enough of us chime in with our needs for a demo version, Alsoft will realize the sales they are losing/have lost due to their misallocated development resources. In the meantime, I'm going to go over to Insider Software's site, and dowload the 30 DAY TRIAL of their font manager. And if it serves my needs...well, Alsoft, I WANTED to consider your product.

--Kevin

The difference with a util like PlusOptimizer (which either did what it did or didn't -- one trick pony) and DiskWarrior is that even if they're not 100 percent effective at their task you can still use them in conjunction with another utility -- follow DiskWarrior with Drive 10 and/or Norton's and/or Apple's Disk Util, that sort of thing. With Font Management it's a different story. If the Font Manager you just bought doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you -- it will just sit there in your Apps/Utils folder collecting rhetorical dust. KWIM??

That said, it is indeed testimony to the extremely high quality of Alsoft's other products that I would even entertain purchasing without a demo, but for both financial and reasons of principle, I would not. A demo is necessary. That a font manager can handle 450 fonts well is not a test for me -- I manage more than 35,000 faces and need something that can deal with that load. Suitcase manages fairly well, Font Reserve database gets corrupted constantly, and FontAgent positively crawls (though recent betas have improved significantly.) As I said before, I'm not looking to plunk down $90 to try it out. I do not mean to impugn Alsoft in any way, though. I just think they're making a poor decision, *especially* if they want folks to give them a chance when coming out of the gate as late as they are. My $0.02