6 ms·

This is a really cute hack. That said, the pricing is absurd. There are numerous data analysis and graphing programs that produce better looking, more customi

This is a really cute hack. That said, the pricing is absurd. There are numerous data analysis and graphing programs that produce better looking, more customizable charts and graphs with a simpler UI, most of which cost significantly less than $129 despite being much more powerful.

tptacek 14y ago
The pricing is completely in line with what professional typefaces cost.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- stephencanon 14y ago
  I agree. I never said that it wasn't. This isn't a typical font, however. This is a font that serves a single specialized purpose, which is better served by existing non-font tools that are also cheaper. An exceptionally difficult sales proposition if one wants to get beyond font geeks who buy it simply because it's cool (not that there's anything wrong with that; I certainly considered buying it simply because it was a cool hack). The value of a product isn't based on what it is, it's based on how it's used.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    FontFont is going to have no trouble selling this to the market they normally sell things to: independent and corporate professional design shops that have no qualms at all spending (relatively) trivial amounts of money for typefaces.
sp332 14y ago
It's not really about producing charts, it's about putting charts where you normally couldn't. World primary energy use by %: Oil 34.77, Coal 29.36, NG 23.76, Nuke 5.47, Hydro 6.63 █▇▅▁▂
- stephencanon 14y ago
  There isn't anywhere this lets me put a chart that I can't today. Computers are capable of rendering non-font content, even if it sometimes seems otherwise.
- jgamman 14y ago
  how did you do that?
  - roryokane 14y ago
    The black rectangles are just Unicode characters – for example, “▅” is character U+2585 LOWER FIVE EIGHTHS BLOCK. sp332 probably either used https://github.com/holman/spark https://github.com/holman/spark or manually copied and pasted those characters.
  - ThePherocity 14y ago
    That's how we used to make GUIs. Miss those days.
    - sp332 14y ago
      Close :) That was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437 (or the Unix equivalent I guess). I used the Unicode symbols that roryokane mentioned above, because it has more options for the height of a block (not just half-blocks). You can get Unicode versions of the older drawing symbols from this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Latin_character_sets_%28computing%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Latin_character_sets_%2...
kmfrk 14y ago
Could you list some of these?
- stephencanon 14y ago
  DataGraph (http://www.visualdatatools.com/DataGraph/ http://www.visualdatatools.com/DataGraph/) is my personal favorite. The examples on the website don't necessarily do the tool justice, but it produces really beautiful output if you take the time to learn to use it, produces good output even if you don't, scales well to huge data sets, and the guy who writes it is incredibly sensitive to user feedback; when I've requested features, they've usually been available in a new beta inside of two days.

tptacek 14y ago

The pricing is completely in line with what professional typefaces cost.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
stephencanon 14y ago
I agree. I never said that it wasn't. This isn't a typical font, however. This is a font that serves a single specialized purpose, which is better served by existing non-font tools that are also cheaper. An exceptionally difficult sales proposition if one wants to get beyond font geeks who buy it simply because it's cool (not that there's anything wrong with that; I certainly considered buying it simply because it was a cool hack). The value of a product isn't based on what it is, it's based on how it's used.
- tptacek 14y ago
  FontFont is going to have no trouble selling this to the market they normally sell things to: independent and corporate professional design shops that have no qualms at all spending (relatively) trivial amounts of money for typefaces.

sp332 14y ago

It's not really about producing charts, it's about putting charts where you normally couldn't. World primary energy use by %: Oil 34.77, Coal 29.36, NG 23.76, Nuke 5.47, Hydro 6.63 █▇▅▁▂

stephencanon 14y ago
There isn't anywhere this lets me put a chart that I can't today. Computers are capable of rendering non-font content, even if it sometimes seems otherwise.
jgamman 14y ago
how did you do that?
- roryokane 14y ago
  The black rectangles are just Unicode characters – for example, “▅” is character U+2585 LOWER FIVE EIGHTHS BLOCK. sp332 probably either used https://github.com/holman/spark https://github.com/holman/spark or manually copied and pasted those characters.
- ThePherocity 14y ago
  That's how we used to make GUIs. Miss those days.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Close :) That was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437 (or the Unix equivalent I guess). I used the Unicode symbols that roryokane mentioned above, because it has more options for the height of a block (not just half-blocks). You can get Unicode versions of the older drawing symbols from this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Latin_character_sets_%28computing%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Latin_character_sets_%2...

kmfrk 14y ago

Could you list some of these?

stephencanon 14y ago
DataGraph (http://www.visualdatatools.com/DataGraph/ http://www.visualdatatools.com/DataGraph/) is my personal favorite. The examples on the website don't necessarily do the tool justice, but it produces really beautiful output if you take the time to learn to use it, produces good output even if you don't, scales well to huge data sets, and the guy who writes it is incredibly sensitive to user feedback; when I've requested features, they've usually been available in a new beta inside of two days.