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Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

fontgenerator.design

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Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#71

Post by notpushkin »

Fileformat wrote: post #62
catoc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Enthusiastically try fileformat.info 2. “141 TCF vendor(s) and 69 ad partner(s) want to track you” 3. Exit :-(

I get where you are coming from, and have put some thought into it. I built the site over 20 years ago, and while it was fun to make, I wouldn't have maintained it this long if is was costing me every month. I've tried to minimize the intrusiveness: I disabled the pop-up and interstitial ads and I don't serve anything different to people with ad-blockers. And I've stuck with Google Adwords, despite requests from all…

I love fileformat.info, thank you so much for it!

I know it probably won’t amount to a lot, but have you tried asking for donations? I love seeing websites I regularly use doing that and not just relying on ads.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#72

Post by ornornor »

Very clean design, congrats!

I’d love to see a section describing the glyph’s usage (I usual have to check Wikipedia for that) and which compose key sequence to use to type it. For instance on Linux (maybe other OSes too?) you can type + e + = and get the euro sign.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#73

Post by yarlinghe »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

Very nice. I found it odd, that tapping on a square “highlights” it, by making it “pop,” but nothing else really happens. It took me a bit to figure out that I need to actually select the arrow in the upper right corner, to get the page.

Agreed — the small expand target was a mistake, especially on mobile. I switched to “tap card = open details” and moved copy into a dedicated, larger button. Much clearer now.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#74

Post by yarlinghe »

amelius wrote: post #44

Could use a list of (free) fonts that support the corresponding glyph.

Added a small “Font tips (if you see □)” section with system font notes and Noto suggestions. Also added a codepoint fallback page so you can still inspect encodings even when the glyph doesn’t render locally.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#75

Post by yarlinghe »

abeyer wrote: post #68

You say "for every unicode symbol", which I guess is true if you search by code, but for anything that isn't in your curated set I'm unable to even find it if I paste the literal character or use the "official" name. eg ℝ "Double-Struck Capital R" won't show up at all unless I search it as U+211D.

You’re right — the main index is curated. I added a /codepoint/… fallback so pasting a literal character or U+XXXX always lands you on a dev-friendly encoding page, even outside the curated sets. I also clarified this in the UI copy.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#76

Post by yarlinghe »

ghusbands wrote: post #61
yarlinghe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep — fully agree. For modern HTML/CSS/JS, you should just write the character and serve UTF-8. The entities / codes are there purely as reference for legacy cases, debugging, or when you only have a code point and no rendered glyph — not as a recommendation for normal authoring.

Your site still says "HOW TO ADD ALMOST EQUAL TO IN HTML? Use an HTML entity, a decimal code, or a hex code." That is incorrect. As you say, you should just write the character in your HTML and ensure it's served with the correct encoding. If it's just for legacy cases, debugging or such, say so on the site.

Agreed. Updated the HTML section to recommend writing the literal character + UTF-8 by default. Numeric refs/entities are now explicitly framed as legacy / edge-case references.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#77

Post by yarlinghe »

diziet wrote: post #49

Cool! Ideas: At least do an ensemble approach by queuering llms to explain what the symbols "are". It's so auto generated now. Link to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximation#Typography Developers need to understand context too, not see a static page of "macOS: Use Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) and search by name, or copy/paste." The related to symbols make little sense. For example: htt…

Good point. I added a Notes section and reworked “Related” to focus on things people actually get confused by (pairs, confusables, same block), not just category adjacency.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#78

Post by yarlinghe »

merelysounds wrote: post #51

Feature request: some context, history and/or example of popular usage. Some symbols leave me with more questions than answers, like “LEFT HALF RUNNING MAN”[1]. I’d like to at least see that it’s a glyph part, that there are two in total, and what does the other half look like; right now the “right half running man” is not listed anywhere on that page, not even in the “related symbols” section. Off topic, the running…

Great example — thanks for the context. I added explicit linking for paired glyph parts (left/right halves) and reference links in Notes. This kind of symbol history is exactly the gap I want to fill.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#79

Post by yarlinghe »

24h update after the Show HN — quick recap.

Based on the feedback here, I spent the last day tightening a few core things:

- Navigation / mobile: tapping a card now opens the symbol page directly; copy is a separate, larger button. The tiny expand target is gone.

- Search: alias + lightweight fuzzy matching is in (e.g. “section”, “angstrom”, “greater than”), plus a /codepoint/... fallback so pasting a literal character or U+XXXX always lands on a usable page, even outside the curated index.

- Missing glyphs: added a small “Font tips (if you see □)” section with system font notes and Noto suggestions.

- Content: HTML/CSS/JS guidance now recommends writing the literal character + UTF-8 by default; entities/codes are framed as legacy/reference only. Added Notes and improved Related (pairs, confusables, same block).

- Privacy: removed session recording; analytics are opt-in with a real reject-all (everything works fine with tracking off).

Direction going forward: fewer generic “how-to” instructions, more symbol-specific context — confusables, paired glyphs, rendering quirks, and references people actually look for.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback — it materially improved the project.

Re: Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

#80

Post by xigoi »

Fileformat wrote: post #62
catoc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Enthusiastically try fileformat.info 2. “141 TCF vendor(s) and 69 ad partner(s) want to track you” 3. Exit :-(

I get where you are coming from, and have put some thought into it. I built the site over 20 years ago, and while it was fun to make, I wouldn't have maintained it this long if is was costing me every month. I've tried to minimize the intrusiveness: I disabled the pop-up and interstitial ads and I don't serve anything different to people with ad-blockers. And I've stuck with Google Adwords, despite requests from all…

Isn’t it just a bunch of static pages? You can get that hosted for free.
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