Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

omgubuntu.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#71

Post by pdimitar »

amelius wrote: post #63
pdimitar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that family of fonts but ultimately couldn't live with how tall they are. I want to have 50-60 lines of code on my screen. With it I had 35-40.

From another point of view, the font is just as tall as other fonts, just less wide. So I suspect you are (maybe unconsciously) making an unfair comparison by scaling one font more than the other. You can see an apples-to-apples comparison here: https://www.programmingfonts.org/#iosevka (and then put and hold your finger on the last line of text and select another font)

Yes, you are correct. When I shrunk it to have the same amount of lines as Ubuntu Mono, it was uncomfortably small.

But you are inspiring me to give it another go. Thanks.

They are beautiful fonts and are often updated, too. Clearly a lot care goes into their crafting.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#72

Post by adrian_b »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #42
lucb1e wrote: post #9

Where possible, I've stopped picking fonts that don't distinguish lowercase l and uppercase I. Words virtually always have redundancy (or context in the sentence) and it's fine in 98% of cases, but too often someone sends a token, password, name, or other string where you need to copy it out to another application to see it and just... why? Why bother? I/O test for Sans Flex: https://snipboard.io/wXCQq5.jpg It passes…

I had a manager who preferred monospaced font, it definitely made it easier in a lot of cases. I also notice a number of them make i l and I and 1 distinct enough.

Except for ancient typefaces like Courier, which predate their use in computers, most monospaced fonts that have been created during the last 40 years have been intended for use by programmers or in command-line interfaces.

Therefore having non-ambiguous characters has been an explicit design requirement for them, at least since the Apple Monaco font.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#73

Post by mytdi »

lucb1e wrote: post #9

Where possible, I've stopped picking fonts that don't distinguish lowercase l and uppercase I. Words virtually always have redundancy (or context in the sentence) and it's fine in 98% of cases, but too often someone sends a token, password, name, or other string where you need to copy it out to another application to see it and just... why? Why bother? I/O test for Sans Flex: https://snipboard.io/wXCQq5.jpg It passes…

I wonder why the Ubuntu and the IBM Plex Sans fonts use a different style "a" for italic vs non-italic. I like the Ubuntu font and have used it in the past.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#74

Post by davoneus »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #60
jorvi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no fonts do this by default and instead offer it as context alternate, but I feel a font should always use a dashed or preferably dotted zero. Zero being slightly skinnier than capital O is not enough for rapid visual clarity.

I believe this font does https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible

As does their recently published: Atkinson Hyperlegible Next. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible+Next

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#75

Post by tomcatfish »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #64

Does it matter ? No really, I'm not trying to be edgy. Does the font we're using to read a document matters?? Last time I checked, scientist agreed that the best for an average user is the font you're used to. Serif, sans serif,.. didn't matter. Just keep using the one you always used. So I don't get why every so often, Google work on a new font. Pick one and stick to it, user don't care. Or am I missing something ?…

Yes, it matters, and big companies can do fantastic things by designing extremely expansive fonts which make it easy to include users speaking plenty of languages that we developers don't even know about.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#76

Post by adrian_b »

hathawsh wrote: post #33

> as well as an axis for rounded terminals (as in terminals in letters, not command-line apps). Now I want to see a rounded terminal (as in command-line apps, not terminals in letters.) Would I type in a circle? Sounds cool.

Letters with rounded terminals are especially popular for public signage in a few Asian countries, e.g. Japan and Korea.

That is why Microsoft Windows has included such a rounded font for the Korean script: Gulim. On Windows, if you want to render a text with Latin letters with rounded ends, you can use Gulim for the normal text, coupled with Arial Round for the bold text.

On MacOS, there was a Hiragino Maru Gothic rounded font for Japanese (where also the Latin letters are rounded). I no longer use Apple computers, so I do not know whether the Hiragino fonts have remained the fonts provided for Japanese.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#77

Post by danso »

lucb1e wrote: post #9

Where possible, I've stopped picking fonts that don't distinguish lowercase l and uppercase I. Words virtually always have redundancy (or context in the sentence) and it's fine in 98% of cases, but too often someone sends a token, password, name, or other string where you need to copy it out to another application to see it and just... why? Why bother? I/O test for Sans Flex: https://snipboard.io/wXCQq5.jpg It passes…

One of the few unqualified improvements that “X” (aka Twitter) made was rendering the usernames in a font that has wings for the lowercase L

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#78

Post by DHowett »

danso wrote: post #77
lucb1e wrote: post #9

Where possible, I've stopped picking fonts that don't distinguish lowercase l and uppercase I. Words virtually always have redundancy (or context in the sentence) and it's fine in 98% of cases, but too often someone sends a token, password, name, or other string where you need to copy it out to another application to see it and just... why? Why bother? I/O test for Sans Flex: https://snipboard.io/wXCQq5.jpg It passes…

One of the few unqualified improvements that “X” (aka Twitter) made was rendering the usernames in a font that has wings for the lowercase L

I had always wondered if that happened because of a proliferation in folks named EionMusk.

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#79

Post by purplehat_ »

torbengee wrote: post #28

I've tried so many fonts in my coding life, but I think I've finally found my forever font: JetBrains Mono. Crisp, all characters distinguishable, slightly larger lowercase for better reading ... I recently compared it once more to others – https://www.programmingfonts.org/ makes it easy to narrow down to your favourites one by one ... JetBrains Mono still wins. :)

Thanks for sharing this!!

I like using silly fonts, e.g. Comic Sans Mono has been my daily driver for the past year or so, and it's really fun to see the Minecraft fonts and old DOS and VT323 fonts. If anyone's into retro computing, it's worth checking those out, particularly the website link for the IBM VGA 9x16, which has loads and loads more old fonts.

I think I'll try using Monocraft in the shell for a while and see if it works well for me, though I might stick to Comic Sans for actual coding :)

Re: Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source

#80

Post by snug »

lucb1e wrote: post #9

Where possible, I've stopped picking fonts that don't distinguish lowercase l and uppercase I. Words virtually always have redundancy (or context in the sentence) and it's fine in 98% of cases, but too often someone sends a token, password, name, or other string where you need to copy it out to another application to see it and just... why? Why bother? I/O test for Sans Flex: https://snipboard.io/wXCQq5.jpg It passes…

When I was in Italy, it took me far too long to realize on Google Maps that all the restaurants I was visiting started with "Il" and not the roman numeral two "II"
Post reply on HN