Fontlab Studio EOL'd 10.6 last Mac OS X!!!

[drayon]

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion no longer supports 'Rosetta' the emulations bridge to run PPC apps. Intel only in 10.7 so Fontlab Studio has come to the end of it's life until a complete re-write con Cocoa 64 bit Intel.

The clock is ticking away...tick tick tick.....game over 

[peterdanckwerts]

Yes, this is very worrying.

[mnewlyn]

would a rewrite improve stability under Windows 7 too?

[mnewlyn]

I never had a crash under XP, but it is crashing a couple of times an hour (in the metrics window) on Windows7

[drayon]

Stop changing the subject and twisting this thread into something completely irrelevant! Wanna talk about some other silly OS? create your own thread!! I don't want to read another muttering of anything other than Fontlab Studio's roadmap for Mac OS X.

Fontlab, what is the status on and Intel 64 Bit Cocoa application for Mac OS X?

[Alex Petrov (FontLab)]

Fontlab, what is the status on and Intel 64 Bit Cocoa application for Mac OS X?

It's in the development.

[cdorje]

This is a big concern. Lion is due out in a few months at which point all new Macs will ship with it. All indications are that Lion will not include Rosetta, so no way to run PowerPC code. What is the ETA for a Mac Intel version of FontLab Studio? Oddly enough, it will be possible to run Windows programs (via Parallels or Fusion) even if it is no longer possible to run Classic or PowerPC Mac programs. If an Intel Mac version is not available when Lion comes out, will FontLab give registered owners of Mac FS the Windows version to use in the interim?

[Alex Petrov (FontLab)]

I will repost Adam's post here:

Let me reveal a bit of "kitchen secrets" here.

On Mac OS X, one of the principal reasons for the stability problems is the fact that the application is running in the Rosetta environment, which translates the PowerPC code into Intel code. That environment is not completely stable. So the only solution was to move the code from PowerPC to Intel, which turned out to be more difficult than we originally planned for various reasons: the original code was created in the PowerPlant/Metroworks environment for Mac OS 9, and then moved to Mac OS X using Carbon. Apple XCode was not around when we first developed FontLab for Mac. Unfortunately, PowerPlant/Metroworks was practically discontinued because they sold their Intel compiler to a different company a few months before Apple announced their plans to move Mac OS X to Intel (one of the worst business decisions in the software industry I've heard of, the Metroworks Intel sale, that is).

FontLab Studio is a complex application, and we're a small company (about 10 people) with limited resources. Some of our Mac developers got bored with working on font editors and left the company to try something new (developing iPhone and iPad apps). We hired some new people, but they weren't any good, so we let them go. Then, about 1.5 years ago, we hired a new team, but we were not sure how well they would manage something as important as FontLab Studio, so we put them on the Fontographer 5 project, which was a bit more experimental (and, in a way, smaller in extent). Among others, that project was a test for the new team, and it worked very well. We're very happy with Fontographer 5, the developers delivered what they promised and the result is a fast and stable application.

So we gave the team the task of rebuilding FontLab Studio for Mac Intel, while also adding some new features and fixing some bugs in the "core" code (which is shared between Mac and Windows).

There will be a new version of FontLab Studio (version 5.5) for Windows and for Mac OS X this year. The project is finally well under way, and good people are working on it. Personally, I'm very excited about it. I agree that a new version is long overdue, and I hope that the users will be pleased with the results.

Best regards,
Adam Twardoch
Fontlab Ltd.

source: http://typophile.com/node/80762#comment-459572

[cdorje]

Thanks. It's reassuring to know that a Mac Intel version is on the way. I've been burned several times by abandoned software - having to madly rush to salvage years of work converting from file formats that soon will no longer be supported. PageMaker, PageMill, GoLive, Quicken for Mac, NUDC. Isn't technology supposed to make life easier?

[Dezcom]

Thanks, Alex!  I saw Adam's original post but it is reassuring to see you repost it and concur.

[Eljay Love-Jensen (Adobe)]

Thanks Alex (and Adam) for the update.

In the time that I first started asking about it, I have done a port of a major project from Windows to OS X PowerPC.  From OS X PowerPC to OS X Intel.  From OS X Intel Carbon, to OS X Intel Cocoa 64-bit.  (Also maintaining Windows, and later porting from Windows 32-bit to Windows 64-bit.)

Also a small sized team, of about 10 developers.

The upshot is:  I know how much effort is involved.  It's a lot.  I anxiously await FontLab Studio 5.5 for OS X Intel.*

Alas, as with any large project... there will be bugs.  Software engineering is never having to say you're done.

* Preferably before Apple moves from Intel to ARM, if the recent MacBook Air rumors have any merit.

[Dezcom]

Apple has been emailing its customers that Lion will be out in July.  Here is hoping the Intel FLS-5.1 slides in to home on time ;-)

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