rootfont

The native font manager for designers and programmers on macOS.

Current build: v0.3.0-alpha (5)
Platform: macOS 14+
Bundle ID: com.rootfont.app

rootfont is currently in active alpha development.

rootfont v0.3.0-alpha is the programming-font release on top of v0.2.0-beta. This build adds a dedicated Programming workspace, a full suitability-scoring pipeline, multi-mode font comparison, 12-language code preview, OpenType controls in the inspector, font activation/install flows, and one-click editor config export. Startup is faster thanks to staged catalog loading and shared font-URL caching.

• Sidebar Library / Programming module switch; Programming mode scopes to monospaced fonts and sorts by programming fit by default.
• New sidebar filters: Recommended for code, Avoid for code, and Managed by rootfont.
• Programming suitability scoring (S / A / B / C / NR) across ten weighted factors: monospace baseline, glyph disambiguation, ligatures, stylistic flexibility, box drawing, Powerline, Nerd Font, variable font, language coverage, and weight variety.
• Score breakdown with per-factor progress bars, grade badges, and Why popovers; low-grade fonts show improvement hints.
• Configurable score weights in Settings: Default, Terminal Heavy, IDE Heavy, and Minimalist presets plus ten independent sliders.
• Persisted score cache at ~/Library/Application Support/rootfont/scores.json, invalidated on font file changes.

• Font compare in the preview panel: side-by-side, overlay (opacity + visibility), glyph zoom, and outline-diff modes.
• Score delta, top factor deltas, and language-coverage diff between baseline and candidate fonts.
• Sample / Code preview surface toggle with mini syntax highlighting for 12 languages (Swift, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Go, Java, Kotlin, SQL, JSON, Shell, CSS).
• Semantic and Native code-snippet strategies per language via SnippetCatalog.

• Live OpenType binding: ligatures, slashed/dotted zero, and stylistic sets in preview; preferences persist per font.
• Font activation: session activate, user-scope install to ~/Library/Fonts/rootfont/, uninstall, and startup reconcile.
• One-click editor config copy for VS Code, Cursor, Alacritty, Kitty, Warp, and Zed.
• Preview header actions: copy PostScript name, open in Font Book, open managed-fonts folder.

• Staged catalog loading with two-phase progress UI (load fonts / enrich analysis); partial results appear before enrichment finishes.
• FontURLIndex caches system font URL enumeration across load, activation, and filtering.
• FontPreviewView split into focused subviews; programming grade badges on grid cards.
• Expanded hit targets in sidebar and font list for more reliable row selection.
• GitHub Actions CI on macos-15 (swift build, swift test, check-l10n.py, check-version.py); ~80 tests across 16 suites including scoring, activation, and compare coverage.

Screenshots follow the screenshots/v<version>/NN-<slug>.png convention. Validate locally with python3 scripts/optimize-screenshots.py --check before committing new images.

• Browse installed fonts on macOS with grid/list views, search, and glyph-coverage filter
• Preview fonts with custom text, size, and quick-sample presets
• Favorites, recents, smart collections, and drag-and-drop import
• Programming workspace with scoring, compare, code preview, and OpenType controls
• Session activation, user install, and editor config export
• Localized UI (English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean)

• Supported languages: en, zh-Hans, zh-Hant, ja, ko, fr, de, es
• Quick Sample presets include dedicated Japanese and Korean text
• When a selected font does not fully support current preview text, rootfont shows a fallback warning

• macOS 14+ (Apple Silicon or Intel)
• Xcode 15+ with the macOS SDK — the full app from the App Store or developer.apple.com/xcode
• Swift 6.0+ (Package.swift uses swift-tools-version: 6.0). Swift 6.2+ is recommended; newer toolchains apply stricter Swift concurrency checks. A SendingRisksDataRace build failure in FontBrowserViewModel was fixed on master (see issue #56); open a new issue if you still hit it on the latest commit.

rootfont is a macOS-only SwiftPM project. Building, running, and testing on Linux or with Command Line Tools alone is not supported.

Use the Xcode toolchain, not standalone Command Line Tools:

xcode-select -p
# Expected: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

# If you see /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools instead:
sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Verify Swift and XCTest:

swift --version
xcrun swift -e 'import XCTest; print("XCTest OK")'

swift test requires XCTest from Xcode. If you see no such module 'XCTest', switch xcode-select as above and open Xcode once to finish component installation.

swift run RootFontApp

bash scripts/build-app.sh

Produces .build/app/rootfont.app with version, build number, and git short SHA embedded in Info.plist.

swift test

bash scripts/install-git-hooks.sh

Hooks run localization and version-metadata checks on commit when relevant files are staged.

Open an issue with:

• rootfont version and build (from About → Copy Version)
• About → Copy System Info output
• swift --version and xcode-select -p
• Steps to reproduce and expected vs actual behavior

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

rootfont is licensed under Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.

See NOTICE for third-party attribution requirements.

This project follows the Contributor Covenant. See CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.