Web fonts are all the rage. I’ve been playing with both Typekit and the Google Fonts API recently, and one of the big drawbacks I’ve seen so far is the inability to test the fonts without a lot of pain. If you’re used to making comps, how will you design with a given font if it isn’t installed on your machine? If you’re a developer, aren’t you hungry for something more efficient than configuring options on the font archive’s site, calling the script in your header and then adding it to your CSS?
So far I haven’t seen a smooth, simple way to flip through various fonts in the same way you might in a graphic design program.
There should be a way. It wouldn’t be hard to write some JavaScript that you only have to place once in your page header that would allow you to preview many fonts in your site. Imaging being able to specify a class or tag — or even just click on an element — and choose from drop-down boxes full of fonts, sizes and styles.
Normally, I would keep this idea to myself, scheme about it for eons and maybe, just maybe, bring it to light. Instead, I’m going to discuss it here so somebody builds it — maybe me, maybe you — but it seems like a good enough idea that it must be done. Maybe it already is and I don’t know about it.