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Dev Fonts

devfonts.gafi.dev

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Re: Dev Fonts

#251

Post by WorldMaker »

Chris_Newton wrote: post #234
kps wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate that keyboard input is an afterthought for most systems. OS X is probably the best overall, with easy installation (with one gotcha for development) and SIL Ukelele being a decent editor. XKB is tolerable, overcomplicated in some ways and limited in others (really needing a layout to be paired with an .XCompose), but Linux Desktops™ make it painful to configure any layout that doesn't ship with their…

I use a great little Windows program called WinCompose[1]. It turns Alt Gr on my keyboard into a “compose” key, so I can press that followed by a short sequence of other keys to quickly type numerous common symbols. As a result, I can type “ or † or ≤ almost as easily as I can type " or * or [1] http://wincompose.info/

Also built in to Windows these days is the Emoji (Soft) Keyboard which you can pull up with Win+. or Win+; (whichever you prefer). Since a few Windows feature updates back it even has a comprehensive math symbols section (under the Omega tab). It just needs a few more shortcuts under the math tab to make it really powerful. For instance, if you keep typing after you bring up the Emoji Keyboard it will search through Emoji and then replace your search word with your final selection, but it currently doesn't let you type search words or shortcuts for math symbols when you switch to the Omega tab.

Re: Dev Fonts

#252

Post by Drew_ »

fuyu wrote: post #246
kps wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. Ligatures in coding fonts are a poor workaround for bad keyboard layouts. If you want to see ≠ then type ≠. Julia is the only ‘major’ language I know that supports most such characters.

Ligatures in coding fonts is a good workaround for giving people options on what they see. I personally dislike ligatures, but I work with people who do like them. They want to see ≠, but typing ≠ instead of != in a shared code base is not going to happen, regardless of keyboard layout or language support.

This is also the same reason why tabs are better than spaces.

Re: Dev Fonts

#253

Post by anamexis »

systemvoltage wrote: post #230
rvanmil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks really nice, too bad it doesn't (and never will) support ligatures. I understand the point the author is trying to make about ligatures in the separate blog post, but boy do I love my ligatures when programming.

How do you plan to reverse engineer the underlying keystrokes if you look at some ligature ridden code on a tutorial website? It is nice to read. That's not the only thing we do with code. Ligatures are fine for yourself in a private setting. It's popularity is alarming.

> How do you plan to reverse engineer the underlying keystrokes if you look at some ligature ridden code on a tutorial website?

Copy and paste it in a different font.

Re: Dev Fonts

#254

Post by WorldMaker »

fimdomeio wrote: post #29
lucideer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what exactly is the appeal of it anyway? To answer this question you probably need to start broader with: why do ligatures exist in fonts at all? Then see if that applies to programming. There's various accounts of the "reasons" ligatures came to be, but of the few I've seen all would (imo) apply equally to code as to language. The obvious one is pure aesthetic preference, but another is that ligatures came abo…

In typography there are ligatures that exist because they help readability (ex: ff fi tt) and others that are pure ornamental (ex: st). Personaly I see coding ligatures as ornamental as I can't read === faster if all the lines are merged because I need a precision in the meaning of this symbols that I wouldn't need if I was reading text where I can use, - – — (minus, en dash, em dash) and while it might look a little…

Most of today's coding ligatures merge === such that it has three lines vertically as opposed to just two (evoking a "hamburger menu" icon as others have noted), in addition it's also generally still three character widths versus two. I find it easier to visually spot the difference between the == and === ligatures in Fira Code or Cascadia Code than between the non-ligature forms and counting the spaces in between the lines. Your mileage may vary of course, but in most cases after several years with Fira Code I find the ligatures in general are much faster for "at a glance" precision than some of the non-ligature forms.

Re: Dev Fonts

#255

Post by jdmichal »

tsjq wrote: post #243
jdmichal wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the font you are reading this comment in, in fact. Wrong. One of my favorite features of Firefox is that I get to choose whether websites can override my fonts. And they can't. Serifed Georgia is default, Ariel if they request sans-serif, and Consolas for monospace.

Curious. Does this prevent the browser from downloading webfonts thing ?

Yes. I just reloaded the Dev Fonts page with and without locked fonts and it only downloads them when the fonts are unlocked.

I forgot to mention that one may also set a minimum font size. That one does occasionally break a layout here or there, but it's worth it for easier reading.

Re: Dev Fonts

#256

Post by utxaa »

chrismorgan wrote: post #248
utxaa wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i can't find any pictures of triplicate with a dark background. could you share any? some hefty fonts (ie, go mono, courier) look so different when you change backgrounds that i am hesitant to buy without looking at a sample. TIA

My own website has a dark theme if you have @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark), or if JavaScript is enabled, there’s a switcher in the top right hand corner. Note however that I use Triplicate T3 in the dark theme (300/700 for regular/bold), compared with Triplicate T4 in the light theme (400/700). You can fiddle with the @font-face declarations in dev tools (the font change happens in 2019b-dark.css) if you want to…

thank you! this helps. as i suspected it is the best font i've seen for programming with a light background, and just meh with a dark background. i prefer a dark background though, and the only font that i can tolerate with dark is pragmata pro. sigh being so aware of fonts is a curse.

thanks again.

Re: Dev Fonts

#257

Post by libria »

chrismorgan wrote: post #16

My favourite monospaced font is Triplicate https://practicaltypography.com/triplicate.html >: the only true serif monospace that I know of (though I have a vague feeling I found one other at some point). Every other serif monospace I know of is a slab serif. Triplicate’s variable stroke thickness is also exceedingly rare in monospaced fonts; almost everyone goes for uniform stroke thickness, as is customary with sans…

I'm not clear on the outcry against ligatures. This is a client-side setting and not committed to code, is that right? If so, this is like prescribing that we should use dark-mode over light-mode because I like it.

Now during the pandemic we might screenshare more often so I can disable it for that, but for development on my own time on my own screen it's nonyabizness.

Re: Dev Fonts

#258

Post by throwanem »

actionscripted wrote: post #232
throwanem wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest, I've never grasped the perspective that sees typography as a meaningful aesthetic property of code. I mean, when I look at code, I'm not appreciating it as visual art, I'm reading it. Usually the point at which that stops happening is the point at which my brain is tired enough that it's time to go do something else for a little while and recover. So, as long as the font I'm using doesn't actively imp…

If you're working on code for most of the day, you will absolutely be making decisions that enhance your experience. Could be an editor, monitor, chair, etc. It might not seem like some of those little things matter -- if I can sit in the chair, it works for me! -- but they do to some and typography is one of those things. I don't understand folks who don't understand this. I get it if you don't personally care about…

I mean sure, I get that it's a QoL thing and that some people care more than others - I'm not arguing it shouldn't matter to anyone, so much as saying I have trouble grasping what specifically about it does make it matter to those who value it highly, I guess.

Re: Dev Fonts

#260

Post by airstrike »

jwr wrote: post #125

It seems the Input fonts are missing ( https://input.fontbureau.com ) — I found this extensive font family several years ago and (in spite of regularly checking) haven't found anything better yet.

Agreed. Actually ctrl+F'd to see if anyone else was talking about this great family.

I used to be all about Consolas, Ubuntu Mono and Monaco pretty much interchangeably... until I tried Input and never looked back

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