The problem with Preview mode not updating as it should has been mentioned before. But my issue is a different variation on the same problem.
I noticed this while working in Foundry and in Skinz. When I change fonts in Foundry’s Typeface stack or in Skinz’ Fontamental stack, the change doesn’t take effect in neither one of these cases—until I switch many times between Edit, Preview and different pages. It seems to work randomly. Saving the project does not have any effect on this anomaly. Even quitting and re-launching RW does not help. The only thing that makes text appear rendered with new fonts is flipping between pages of a project and switching between Edit and Preview on each page, until something “clicks” for no apparent reason.
you sometimes see the font when switching between pages
but it’s somewhat rare, most of the time, the font doesn’t load
this means:
the font setting is really in the HTML of that page
something is preventing the font from loading most of the time
i can really only guess at the cause, from this info. i think i’d probably have to see the project first hand to say much more. but here’s my guess:
switching between pages is a red herring. what you’re actually doing there is simply causing the page to reload. and the font is loading intermittently. so reload enough times and eventually the font loads? that seems plausible – but there are probably a dozen other explanations too.
what is causing the font to load intermittently? that level of detail i can’t guess. probably a JS issue on the page. maybe even a css issue. or maybe content being loaded different orders depending on cached vs. uncached.
what i’d recommend:
make a new page with just some basic text on it. nothing else. does the font load correctly?
if that doesn’t help, then check your site-wide css and js. make sure you haven’t introduced an error there.
if even a trivial page won’t load the font and you have no other css or js loading, then it’s time to send that project file to me and i’ll have a look and let you know exactly what’s happening.
probably a JS issue on the page. maybe even a css issue. or maybe content being loaded different orders depending on cached vs. uncached.
Thanks, Isaiah. As usual, your analytical approach is very helpful (especially for someone like me who is not a coder).
I have started so many new projects from scratch, just to get those fonts working… But I will do it again, to make sure that nothing but fonts are the variable. I’ll report later.
No need to start a whole new project. Simply duplicating the page and removing all the other content.
Option-drag the page.
Select the top-most stack on the page.
Hold down the delete key
Drag in a generic Text stack.
Copy-Paste whatever stack/code/css was setting up the font on the other page (if necessary)
Two minutes, I’d guess. Easy peasy. You got this.
That will at least give you the basic info on how to move forward. Fixing some JS problems can be hard – but I can help with that part if you need a hand.
Or… maybe we discover it’s really a RW/Stacks/Foundry bug? In any case, shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes tops.
I started new project in Foundry (just to be sure that I got a clean slate), imported necessary fonts, copied a partial with Foundry’s Typeface from another project, added some generic Foundry headers and paragraphs with different fonts configurations. In Preview, paragraphs were shown in proper fonts, but headers were not. And then, it dawned on me very quickly. Eureka!
“You can’t copy a partial from one project to another, if resources (fonts, or otherwise) are involved, dumb ass”—I said to myself. So, I re-linked all my Typeface fonts to corresponding resources in this particular project and then all my headers and paragraphs rendered as expected. Lesson learnt… or was it, really?
Then, I duplicated that first page and added other kind of stack that uses text (BWD’s ‘Billboard’) with specific fonts. And again, initially, all text (even text that was duplicated from the first page) on the second page was shown in the default font instead of chosen one. I saved the project and exited RW.
Next morning, I opened the project. The first page rendered with chosen fonts. The second page rendered with default fonts. I flipped between these two pages couple of times and fonts on the second page magically appeared in their chosen form.
At this point, I hope that someone familiar with RW’s and Stacks’ workings (@isaiah) will enlighten me as to how to deal with this phenomenon.
P.S. As far as I can comprehend, this is probably a cache/resources issue…
I noticed that when I open this test-project and fonts are not rendered properly, the saved viewing state (Inspector and Library) are not remembered as well, even though Stacks Preferences are set properly. After I open the Library panel (I always save with the Library opened), the text in Preview mode changes its rendering to chosen fonts. So, there is some kind of RW/Stacks cache involved and it doesn’t work properly.
The state of the app, positions of windows, etc are stored in the preferences (a.k.a. User Defaults). The content of the project (like font settings) are stored in the project file.
So these issues are likely unrelated – but it’s perhaps good to keep in mind that multiple things seem to be behaving strangely.
I suspect I’m going to need to see the actual project file to move forward from here.
Here’s how to share it:
Take the project that’s misbehaving and zip it up using the Finder. Just Ctrl-Click (right click) on it and choose Compress “NameOfFile”
To share your addons folder open the Addons window (click the button in the toolbar) then click the “Export Addons Directory” button.
Share both of these files via Dropbox and send them in a private message to me.
Hey, @isaiah, do you need all my add-ons that get exported (282 MB after zipping), or just those I use in my Sample project? I need to mention that I don’t have DropBox account. I could upload this package to my website and give you the URL, if you want.
In many cases, I’d say that it probably doesn’t matter – but in this case I think it’s probably important to get the entire add-ons directory.
Why? You’re experiencing irregular application behavior. One potential source is the plugins you have installed – perhaps something is corrupted. Perhaps an update has gone wrong. Even stacks that have installed, how they’re installed, and what’s installed is probably a potential source.
The quickest way to get help is to share your experience with support folks. The easiest way for you to share your experience is to share your complete RW environment as it exists on your machine right now. This is one of the key reasons why RW8 added the feature of archiving your entire Add-ons folder.
As for how to share: you can share any way that suits you. I just recommend dropbox as it’s easy and a basic account is free. But your website will work fine too.
If anybody follows this thread, I have one final comment that may (or may not) help others…
OK, after few days of working together with Isaiah and on my own, I can finally get some cagey conclusions. Probably better phrase would be “cautious findings”. It all boils down to a most probable ascertainment of no fault on the part of RW, Stacks or Foundry. However, no definitive cause of failure was found, just possible contributing factors.
I made several observations of circumstances that might be contributing to the way custom fonts were rendered in my Foundry project.
I ran a Font Book validation of my system fonts—just to see what was going on in there. I found 727 fonts. 8 of them had serious problems and 54 had minor problems. I marked all problematic fonts for removal.
When I restarted my Mac and reopened my RW sample project, fonts that were previously giving me a headache, rendered properly.
Isaiah confirmed that corrupted system fonts may cause failure of fonts that reside outside of the system.
I made another observation. The custom fonts I was using until yesterday were in Latin subset. I noticed that the German umlaut characters were substituted with default font face. Perhaps that was the reason why sometimes text was rendered in chosen fonts (minus the umlauts) and other times all text was rendered in default font face?
After I imported new subsets of fonts that were supporting German language, I did not experience abnormal font rendering.
Hopefully, from now on I will be able to draw better conclusions about custom font behavior in case something this puzzling will ever occur again.
