It doesn't move slow for me on Mac. It's perfect.

It works fine for me both the ways. I can scroll in newer way of font menu in character panel as well, whereas I can still access font through scrolling directly in character panel. I am not sre what is causing issue at your end, but it seems working fine for me with new Illustrator. And even I liked the new way of font listing, where I can even access it right from Character Panel.

I've been trying to track down an answer for that myself! What the heck is that?? It's ridiculous. Plus, if I'm at the top of the font list, I don't have 10 extra minutes to scroll down to the bottom - geesh. Guess I'll have to change my long aquired habits and use the menu at the top of the workspace. ugh.

For some reason that wasn't working at first, but it's fine now.
Thanks doc.

The character panel in Illustrator is plain abysmal. In addition to all things that have already been said, I would like to mention that scrolling through fonts with arrow keys on the keyboard is completely broken: when I select a font, lets say American Typewriter, and use the down arrow key, it gets changed to the next font on my list (Andale Mono). But if I press the down key again, nothing happens. In this case I can only shuffle between those two fonts.

But when I select Arial from the drop-down menu and then use the down arrow key, it allows me to shuffle between 15 fonts (up to Courier New in my case) and then stops again. So in order for me to choose a font for my text, I have to use both -- mouse and keyboard -- in order to jump up or down those stops.

And when you bump into fonts that don't support some particular characters I have in my text (although, it does support it in other CS apps, like Photoshop), I loose all the ability to choose that font all together.

I thought font handling in Fireworks was bad but to implement this UI interface for fonts in your flagship illustration product is barmy!! Please revert back to CS5 implementation for fonts...

I mean who's bright idea was it to allow you to select a font and then when you select the list again for it not to be highlighted as the selected font!

In fact, I see what you've done now, you swapped the functionality between the panel and the shortcut font selector.. Bah!

Why oh why change things when they work fine!!

I wish I wasn't in this forum for the humor, but this made me laugh as it is sadly true.

I'm so glad I found this thread! In some way I'm glad it's not just me that finds the font system in illustrator completely and utterly infuriating.

This program is 25 years old, any other software house would be bending over backwards to make their program the best it can be and this is the system they're happy to let users struggle through? It's unbelievable.

It's not like it's a donationware program wrtitten by a single developer.

I think Adobe should be embarrassed with the functionality of their program. I watched a few videos on the new features of CS6 and it was basically people saying 'this function is a bit better than it used to be' going crazy over breadcrumbs.

I've seen 'Adobe will not admit they're wrong/have any weakness' a few times here and there, well it's about time they started listening to the people that have to work with their program because it's not good enough.

I don't expect to have to wait whilst the fonts slowly tick by and with them moments of our lives, it's a major inconvenience. I don't expect to have to click random places on my screen to get rid of a pop up/drop down menu, the program should know that if I have been adjusting a value and then click on the direct selection tool I want the direct selection tool, close the entry box instantly.

Why do I have to double click the color swatch? Why, when I've selected a path and hold my finger on the left arrow key (to nudge) am I whizzing through the file, edit, object, type.... bar?

Why does the color mode not stay on HSB? Who regularly uses RGB to adjust colors anyway? Put a color wheel in,  go on, it won't kill you. People love flexibilty.

Why do gradients have to be rasterized when using 3D? Just shift the path and change the gradient angle for me.

Why isn't there a fillet tool?

Why don't you change the tone of the buttons so the different selctions are clear? (Select, create, manipulate etc).

When it comes to text selection in a project why are my only options - a tiny line that's fiddly to click on or a giant invisible box that covers everything? How about if I want to select the writing I could just click on the text?

Why can't we drag the words for data boxes like in photoshop? (eg:opacity) that's a great feature!

And why can't we have gradients on text?!

Adobe: because text is not actually a path and gradients can only be applied to paths.

Right, so write your way around the problem, make it so when a user selects the text tool, types some text and presses enter the program makes a temporary path which remains until a user double clicks the text (at which point the path is returned to proper text) and makes an adjustment. When they have finished adjusting they hit enter and a new temporary path is created.

Basically, there's a lot of little tweaks they could make that would have a big effect on the overall experience.

It's easier to ignore the little things but sometimes you just have to roll your sleeves up and get it done.

That feels better (lol) and breathe......

Ohhmmmmmmmm

It's been 10 months and you still have not done anything with this problem. Do you produce a program for yourself or for users who have something to say?