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Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

github.com

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Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#3

Post by johnhattan »

It appears to be several popular programming fonts with a bunch of extra glyphs added. Does Vim require special font support, because I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of this.

Is this for people who like to put icons into code comments?

Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#4

Post by infodroid »

johnhattan wrote: post #3

It appears to be several popular programming fonts with a bunch of extra glyphs added. Does Vim require special font support, because I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of this. Is this for people who like to put icons into code comments?

Buried at the bottom of the README is the Rationale:

> Originally created for use with vim-devicons vim plugin to add glyphs (icons) as labels for files based on the filetype extension or entire path

Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#5

Post by mkozlows »

johnhattan wrote: post #3

It appears to be several popular programming fonts with a bunch of extra glyphs added. Does Vim require special font support, because I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of this. Is this for people who like to put icons into code comments?

Powerline/Airline is one big one -- the status line in Vim is just a character-mode thing, but with a few extra glyphs (for line number, git branch, and arrows/wedges, most notably) it looks a lot better than if it's using a more limited character set.

vim-devicons is the other big one that this is supporting, which gives you filetype icons.

Are these things huge big deals? No. Are they nice things that make Vim's UI look a little cleaner and more informative within the confines of a pure character-mode application? Yes.

Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#6

Post by creshal »

johnhattan wrote: post #3

It appears to be several popular programming fonts with a bunch of extra glyphs added. Does Vim require special font support, because I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of this. Is this for people who like to put icons into code comments?

> Does Vim require special font support

Not really, that's the terminal emulator's job. If you want to use unicode fuckery for pointless hipster icons, you just need to have the glyphs in any installed font, and the terminal should substitute it when needed, no matter what your configured default font is (unless said font also provides the glyphs).

Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#7

Post by rhinoceraptor »

johnhattan wrote: post #3

It appears to be several popular programming fonts with a bunch of extra glyphs added. Does Vim require special font support, because I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of this. Is this for people who like to put icons into code comments?

No, there's plenty of reasons why you'd want more characters available. I use emoji for git diffs in my vim line number column, for showing battery status, audio levels, etc in tmux, and so on.

Re: Nerd-Fonts – Patched Fonts for Vim

#9

Post by shirro »

I confess I do run vim-airline and tmuxline so I am not entirely innocent when it comes to adding custom fonts to machines for my terminal. It makes them look a little bit nicer, doesn't cost much effort or screen space and doesn't degrade too badly.

For my eyes, vim-devicons looks like a crazy amount of icons for any console app. Can't say I am a fan but as always it is great to see diversity and tool makers making tools for every need.

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