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Lesser Known Coding Fonts

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Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#22

Post by thunderbong »

nielsbot wrote: post #13

I see Input Mono is mentioned, but I actually really like using Input Sans, also from Font Bureau. It's a proportional coding font. I feel like I'm living in the future. You can get it here: https://input.fontbureau.com And amazingly, you can personalize your font on download, such as choosing dotted vs slashed zeroes. Not free, but free for personal, non-commercial use. (Check the terms)

This one is seriously beautiful!

Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#24

Post by pmontra »

nielsbot wrote: post #13

I see Input Mono is mentioned, but I actually really like using Input Sans, also from Font Bureau. It's a proportional coding font. I feel like I'm living in the future. You can get it here: https://input.fontbureau.com And amazingly, you can personalize your font on download, such as choosing dotted vs slashed zeroes. Not free, but free for personal, non-commercial use. (Check the terms)

I've been using proportional fonts for coding for years. Nobody notices when looking at my screen or when doing a screen sharing session. The few times I talk about it everybody agrees that it's easier to read. I'm not surprised, because nobody formats books, magazines, newspapers, web sites with monospaced fonts. The only problem is that it's impossible to align code on successive lines to the right of an equal sign. Not a big deal. It's also pretty impossible to write ASCII diagrams in comments. AFAIK there is no editor that can help with that, unless one wants to code inside a word processor.

I'll try Input Sans.

Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#26

Post by pmontra »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #14
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kerning is easier in your eyes, and is also much more space efficient. The only drawback is the inability to do ascii art.

Maybe it's because I've only used fixed-width fonts for programming and have gotten used to it - but I find fixed-width fonts significantly easier on the eyes.

Only when coding or always, for example books and websites including this one?

Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#27

Post by tony »

Of all things in the world to say, congratulations to Microsoft for their work on Cascadia Code: https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code

It's hard to do these fonts justice via preview alone, but in whole it's very legible to read.

Aside: If you want fast access to a ton of fixed-width (coding) fonts, pre-patched for powerline, you can grab them at https://github.com/powerline/fonts.

If you do CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) characters in the terminal and want crisp, bitmap ligatures, I recommend Wen Quan Yi Micro Hei. But it doesn't work well scaled up in HiDPI monitors unfortunately! CJK in the terminal is still kind of a mystery to me.

Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#29

Post by 0-_-0 »

When I was researching coding fonts for myself I've found the two I liked the most were Iosevka and Fira Code because of their ligature support (DejaVu Sans Mono is also good but typically doesn't have ligatures). The choice between them comes down to whether you value having more horizontal space (shorter lines) or vertical space. Iosevka is horizontally compressed, meaning you can fit more characters into a given window width, and Fira Code is more vertically compressed.

Also, in Visual Studio Code you can fine-tune your coding font using these options:

    "editor.fontFamily": "'Fira Code', monospace",
    "editor.fontSize": 14,
    "editor.lineHeight": 14,
    "editor.letterSpacing": -1.0,
    "editor.fontWeight": "300",
    "editor.fontLigatures": true,
I recommend tuning your lineHeight and letterSpacing.

Re: Lesser Known Coding Fonts

#30

Post by gregoryl »

29athrowaway wrote: post #8

I have used Sudo and Monoid for years. Other fonts I like are: - Luculent, http://eastfarthing.com/luculent/ - Envy Code R, https://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-co... B612 Mono would be an excellent font if the glyphs were well aligned.

Adore Envy Code R. Wish it was something I could purchase and have maintained, one of the very few customisations I make on a new box is configuring things to use it.
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