This opinion seems to buck the trend here but I really like this a lot. I've just now dropped it in as a replacement font to what I was using before for sharing code snippets on my personal blog (was just using monospace before) and for me it's a huge improvement in both readability and just overall looks. The only thing I've noticed is that parentheses look a little weird with this font. They are a little too squared off, particularly noticeable in cases where they are used immediately together like this ().
JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
171–180 of 207 posts
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#172Serious question: Is it possible to turn ligatures on, but deactivate them for only some of the combinations? Specifically, I want to see =, ==, and === 'as written', meaning 1, 2, or 3 separate characters. Pretty much the rest of them (like I'd love to know if this is possible at all, possible for some editors / fonts / OS's, etc, or just a non-starter of an idea.
I don't think it's possible from IDE configuration: there is only a single toggle for ligatures. The font is open source - may be you can build you own without the ligatures you don't need?
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#173I spent more time than I'd like to admit reviewing fonts for legibility and aesthetics. So if you're looking for a new favorite font, hope this helps: 1. IBM Plex Mono 2. Office Code Pro 3. Fira Code 4. Inconsolata 5. PT Mono 6. SF Mono 7. Input Mono 8. Hack 9. DejaVu Sans Mono - Bront 10. Anonymous Pro
It certainly does. Thank you.
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#174I like it, this might finally be the font that gets me to drop Fira Code. It's missing Powerline symbols, though, which is a strange omission for a developer font in 2020.
You could grab a patched copy here: https://www.nerdfonts.com/ Aside, I wish some ligature magic for box drawing characters existed. Or at least don’t skip those glyphs, which is unfortunately the case with many monospace fonts.
NerdFonts doesn't have it yet, but I managed to patch it myself using their tool[1]. Seems to have worked without any issues.
[1]: https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts#option-8-patch-your-...
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#175I always applaud efforts at new typefaces, but unfortunately I feel this is a badly designed typeface that is worse for legibility, not better. Addressing their three main points in turn: > 1. Increased height for a better reading experience A high x-height is good for coding fonts, but this x-height is now too high. To my eye, this is now at the point where lowercase letters are getting harder to distinguish from up…
What would be the font you can recommend?
I like hack. https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#176I always applaud efforts at new typefaces, but unfortunately I feel this is a badly designed typeface that is worse for legibility, not better. Addressing their three main points in turn: > 1. Increased height for a better reading experience A high x-height is good for coding fonts, but this x-height is now too high. To my eye, this is now at the point where lowercase letters are getting harder to distinguish from up…
I'm something of a JetBrains fanboi, but unfortunately I have to agree. I pitted this font against my trusty Consolas, but Consolas wins outright - all the features that JetBrains claim are beneficial (narrow characters and so on) actually seem to make for a less legible font. This is now a very crowded space, and JetBrains' font seems very similar (to my eye) to [Input]( https://input.fontbureau.com ) - honestly, I'…
That's funny, because I had the exact opposite reaction. I was using Consolas, and when I turned on JetBrains Mono I thought "Ah! This is so much clearer!" Just goes to show you how subjective fonts are.
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#177Why do developers get all giddy about a new type face for their editor. Is there something lacking in the millions that already exist? Does it make you produce less bugs, better code? I don't get it
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The use of ligatures seems counter-productive to me. In the code, I do not want to see any editor shenanigans apart from syntax highlighting.
The ligatures are optional. VS Code lets you toggle them on or off, Notepad++ doesn't support them (but there is a plugin for that).
> Notepad++ doesn't support them (but there is a plugin for that)
Do you by any chance have a link? When I looked for the same thing, I just found one GitHub issue referring to Scintilla internals.
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#179I was disappointed that despite presenting the cookie banner as if it were a terminal, the options did not accept keyboard input [Y]es, I agree [N]o, thanks Ok on topic: I'm never sure what to think of these "developer" fonts that make use of ligatures for combinations like ==, >=, ->, =>, etc. On one hand they do look really nice, but I always can't help but feel it would actually make things just a little bit harde…
With a good deal of skepticism, I switched the environment where I do about half of my work to a font with ligatures some time ago. Just to try it out for a while. I happily forgot that I had done it as a trial, and upon reading this headline caught myself hoping that there would be ligatures. I actually find that it provides an almost haptic feedback when going between things like =, == and ===, and I think I miss i…
Wow, I didn't think I wanted ligatures and so I never turned them on. But based on your comment, I just tried it and I found that I love it! The little visual blip! when the characters merge does in fact provide a nice little feedback that I've typed the right thing.
And also the two-character => arrow in fat-arrow functions always kind of bugged me a little bit and it is nice to have it condensed to a single visual entity.
Woo hoo! I will leave ligatures on from now on.
Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm something of a JetBrains fanboi, but unfortunately I have to agree. I pitted this font against my trusty Consolas, but Consolas wins outright - all the features that JetBrains claim are beneficial (narrow characters and so on) actually seem to make for a less legible font. This is now a very crowded space, and JetBrains' font seems very similar (to my eye) to [Input]( https://input.fontbureau.com ) - honestly, I'…
That's funny, because I had the exact opposite reaction. I was using Consolas, and when I turned on JetBrains Mono I thought "Ah! This is so much clearer!" Just goes to show you how subjective fonts are.
Impression and our perceived satisfication is certainly subjective. And sometimes, the only thing we are looking for is a change.
But readability and legibility can be measured. It's unfortunate that Jetbrains makes a bunch of claims without supporting any of them with results surveys/studies, because if right, that would translate to other font designs as well.