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Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

servermono.com

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Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#31

Post by fsckboy »

ecjhdnc2025 wrote: post #21
lycos wrote: post #13

I can't put my finger on it but I don't find this enjoyable to read at all.. so I don't know much about readability claims here. Maybe I'm an outlier.

The line spacing is way too tight (this is line-spacing: 1). Obviously that is beneficial for ASCII-art (smaller vertical gaps), but plain text would benefit from at least 1.1 and maybe 1.2. I am not a typographer but the cap height of this font (I think it's the cap height) appears quite large, when perhaps it would be better to have a slightly smaller cap height so the ASCII-art features would work well at line-hei…

line spacing beyond minimal ought not be an attribute of a font. I can see a "recommended" line spacing for some type of "vertical as well as horizontal beauty", but drives me nuts when choosing a font also chooses scads of whitespace.

I like to squeeze a lot of info on a page, why do other people get to say "no". Sure, space out your wedding invitation, I can deal, but on the daily text on my screen, that should be up to me.

I do prefer "typewriter" fonts that are more squoze horizontally, this one seems to have loosened the ol belt a little, maybe for more "squareness".

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#32

Post by DidYaWipe »

worewood wrote: post #29
deathanatos wrote: post #18

So, if you're going to demonstrate the box drawing characters — and in a monospaced font, I would — they should line up? E.g., under "lines", the rows are overlapping; https://i.imgur.com/KnOP2Wu.png ; I would think they're only supposed to just touch, with no gap, no overlap. The boxes, similarly, don't quite line up right. https://i.imgur.com/6pVYh9a.png (Even the 100% box isn't lining up right, although somehow wh…

Number One, Pipe Character, lower case L, upper case I, zero and O, Parentheses and Brackets, are so common pain points on coding and terminal fonts. Those should be painfully distinct.

The first thing I look at on ANY font is the capital "i." No crossbars? No dice.

This one has those and a distinguishable zero vs. O, so far so good.

Whoops; someone pointed out that 1 and l are indistinguishable. That's a major failing.

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#33

Post by fsckboy »

irundebian wrote: post #20
queuebert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they did say it was inspired by typewriters, and most old typewriters don't have a '1', so you type a lowercase 'l' instead.

That are really old typewriters.

not really, in the sense that it would be a really old typewriter, there aren't any new typewriters. I'm not super old, and typewriters I used in high school did not have a one. Nobody had an IBM Selectric at home.

BTW on the same subject of fonts, you want to be able to distinguish between 1, l, and I which are not always distinguishable.

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#35

Post by righthand »

lycos wrote: post #13

I can't put my finger on it but I don't find this enjoyable to read at all.. so I don't know much about readability claims here. Maybe I'm an outlier.

For me it’s the weird mix of serifs and san-serif letters. Just off putting and weird it kind of feels like reading a note from a kidnapper made of clipped magazine letters pasted together.

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#36

Post by HumblyTossed »

lycos wrote: post #13

I can't put my finger on it but I don't find this enjoyable to read at all.. so I don't know much about readability claims here. Maybe I'm an outlier.

I don't like it. As someone else pointed out, the line spacing is too tight and that might be part of it, but I feel like it is too heavy (thick? Something in between bold and regular, whatever that is called).

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#38

Post by PontifexMinimus »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #32
worewood wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number One, Pipe Character, lower case L, upper case I, zero and O, Parentheses and Brackets, are so common pain points on coding and terminal fonts. Those should be painfully distinct.

The first thing I look at on ANY font is the capital "i." No crossbars? No dice. This one has those and a distinguishable zero vs. O, so far so good. Whoops; someone pointed out that 1 and l are indistinguishable. That's a major failing.

> Whoops; someone pointed out that 1 and l are indistinguishable. That's a major failing.

Agreed.

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#39

Post by fernly »

For those commenting on the importance of character ambiguity, I completely agree, and offer "DP Sans Mono", a font specifically designed for unambiguous proofreading.

https://www.pgdp.net/wiki/DP_Sans_Mono

https://www.pgdp.net/c/faq/font_sample.php

font download link at https://www.pgdp.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=70714

Re: Server Mono: A Typeface Inspired by Typewriters, Apple's SF Mono, and CLIs

#40

Post by ecjhdnc2025 »

fsckboy wrote: post #31
ecjhdnc2025 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line spacing is way too tight (this is line-spacing: 1). Obviously that is beneficial for ASCII-art (smaller vertical gaps), but plain text would benefit from at least 1.1 and maybe 1.2. I am not a typographer but the cap height of this font (I think it's the cap height) appears quite large, when perhaps it would be better to have a slightly smaller cap height so the ASCII-art features would work well at line-hei…

line spacing beyond minimal ought not be an attribute of a font. I can see a "recommended" line spacing for some type of "vertical as well as horizontal beauty", but drives me nuts when choosing a font also chooses scads of whitespace. I like to squeeze a lot of info on a page, why do other people get to say "no". Sure, space out your wedding invitation, I can deal, but on the daily text on my screen, that should be…

Oh I am not saying it should be.

The problem is that to resolve the readability issues many people seem to be observing on that page you need to set it to 1.1 or 1.2 (try it!)

But that will break the console pseudographics.

Part of the problem with this font appears to be large, space-filling (yes, squareness is another way to put it) glyphs, when if they had a bit more of a difference between the cap height and the ascender height the full-height pseudo graphical glyph stuff would still work without the textual characters feeling so cramped.

At least, I think that is right. I know just about this stuff to be wrong in important ways.

Either way there must be a solution to this; it feels like a missed opportunity.

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