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Hack: A typeface designed for source code

sourcefoundry.org

151–160 of 249 posts

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#151
post #73

I'm slightly surprised that almost nobody here uses Menlo or Monaco, even though several screenshots in the thread are clearly made on OS X. I'm curious why that's the case. Do people generally dislike the system-provided fonts or are the alternatives considered "better"?

Monaco 10 is the only true code font :) That is, until I get myself a retina Mac, of course. Then I'll use an undecided vector font and the last remaining piece of resistance from classic Mac will be gone.

So true! The only thing I dislike about my retina Mac is that Monaco 10 no longer looks right.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#152

Why does source code have to be shown in fixed width? I've been using non-fixed width fonts for about a year now and I find it much nicer on the eyes. The only downside I've found is that sometimes things don't line up quite as nicely, which is purely cosmetic.

Proportional is still very contreversial. A few of us have made the transition, and won't go back to fixed-width, but many value the ability to do ASCII art (aka space-based alignment). Other than that, there is absolutely no advantage to using a type writer font on a modern display.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#153
post #74
post #13

I desperately want to find a new code font to love but I always return to Consolas.

Have you tried Source Code Pro ( http://adobe-fonts.github.io/source-code-pro/ )? It's my go-to now when it comes to monospace fonts. I keep it installed on all my systems, right along side my dotfiles.

Yeah, this is my go-to as well.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#154

I use Hasklig, even though on a different language. I love having ligatures for common symbols. I should pick up fontforge again and adapt it to PHP https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig/

I love this and want to use it; I just wish there was a proportional version. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to hack OTF to do my own programming font (proportional with programming-specific ligatures), but the how-to information available on the web isn't very complete.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the one true argument alignment style™ does not work (well ) with variable width fonts: retval = select(readFDCount, &readFDs, NULL, NULL, &timeout); or: d = [NSDictionary initWithObjects: objects forKeys: keys count: count]; added

The first would be easy to simulate semantically, treating the leading whitespace as a flexible tab stop and thus replacing all the leading spaces with a space of the appropriate width (basically, the editor would replace the leading spaces with `retval = select(` with opacity 0). The second would be more difficult to handle, but so long as you know what to look for to indicate the style is being done it could be han…

Elasti-tabs can handle the first case, though I don't really see why you would want to bother. The second case...I don't think is reasonable.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#156
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some very minor changes, but this got me thinking about tricky fonts are compared to software development in general. You can fork a font on GitHub and make some changes, but you can't really merge them back into the original font because fonts are expected to be entirely static. Perhaps they could accept pull requests for a DejaVu 2 or something.

It doesn't work for Helvetica or Arial, but less-famous typefaces can change pretty significantly over time: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3033126/roboto-rebooted-why-goog...

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that before, but those examples seem to embody the struggle in the transition from classic print design to modern digital mediums.

I imagine someday we'll see more typefaces versioned like software, instead of alterations receiving new names. Or is this already happening?

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#157
post #73

I'm slightly surprised that almost nobody here uses Menlo or Monaco, even though several screenshots in the thread are clearly made on OS X. I'm curious why that's the case. Do people generally dislike the system-provided fonts or are the alternatives considered "better"?

Monaco 10 is the only true code font :) That is, until I get myself a retina Mac, of course. Then I'll use an undecided vector font and the last remaining piece of resistance from classic Mac will be gone.

Menlo is nicely tuned for retina displays.

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#159
post #74
post #13

I desperately want to find a new code font to love but I always return to Consolas.

Have you tried Source Code Pro ( http://adobe-fonts.github.io/source-code-pro/ )? It's my go-to now when it comes to monospace fonts. I keep it installed on all my systems, right along side my dotfiles.

[deleted]

Re: Hack: A typeface designed for source code

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried them all, Consolas included, and nothing even comes close to Dina - http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html † That's for Windows, not Macs.

Dina used to be my go-to font as well but a few years ago I switched to Anonymous Pro [1] as it tends to be more recognizable at the small font sizes which I use. [1] http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro

Another vote for Anonymous Pro.
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