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JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

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Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#131

Post by therealdrag0 »

dtertman wrote: post #21

Thanks, I hate it. My most recent update of IntelliJ turned this font on by default and I had to spend an hour trying to figure out what the font used to be. Mono looked squished to me - the intentional favoring of length over width made the whole editor look like I had an aspect ratio problem on my monitor. I appreciate trying to push the envelope and improve ergonomics, but I wish this would have been opt-in for up…

My font didn't change (Still Fira Code), but the look of the text changed in last update. Hard to put my finger on. Some of the text looks more blurry, and I'm noticing more bold than before, but I can't tell if that's mismemory or not.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#132

Post by raphlinus »

tracker1 wrote: post #128

Need to check it out, I think my only concern that may be missing or il-formed would be box and line drawing characters... So many fixed-width fonts get this wrong... Inconsolata, for example has taken a number of revisions to support these characters properly. I will say, I do like a few of the changes, but not sure if I'll be switching from Inconsolata/Consolas any time soon.

Thanks! I recently rewrote the box drawing character generation (in Rust) to support variable fonts, so outputs a very wide range of widths and weights.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#133

Post by mceachen »

sp332 wrote: post #104
dagmx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean 300+ DPI? 3,000 seems higher than I imagine anyone could see or any printer could feasibly print at.

This is based on a very old memory, so it might be wrong. Looks like imagesetters and platesetters can commonly do 2,400 DPI and 3,600 is not unheard of. Even a newspaper platesetter should be around 1,200 DPI.

Can confirm that those high dpi numbers are real. (I paid for my last year in college rendering film for offset press on a 25'x6'x6' monster scitex film printer).

Although the plate or film is rendered at 1600/2400/3200/4800 dpi, the dot gain from the ink soaking into the paper tends to blur fine details. The printing software tried to account for the dot gain, but it was still there.

If you look at a 300dpi laser printer output vs 600dpi, most everyone can tell if they look. Higher resolutions may need a loupe to discern differences.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#134

Post by Joeri »

ebg13 wrote: post #6
nkrisc wrote: post #2

I 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…

Same. Any font that claims to be for programming but includes ligatures gets a "no thanks" from me accompanied by a bit of sadness because they often mar otherwise nicely designed typefaces.

For me it is the reverse, I only want ligatures now and feel a programming font isn’t done until it supports them.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#135

Post by nkrisc »

Grumbledour wrote: post #47
nkrisc wrote: post #2

I 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…

I do love the ligatures in Fira Code. It always makes me happy to see the nice looking =, !=, !== or ->. I am not so sure about these, though. Maybe a tad to much/to special in some cases? Somehow they don't pop for me the same way.

Some of them are a little ambiguous to me. For example, the ligature for #{ looks like it could be #={. I honestly couldn't tell until I selected the text.

Some of them are nice, however. Specifically the ones that just tighten up the spacing and make small adjustments. For example, most of the ones that involve a colon I think are an improvement, but still distinct and unambiguous.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#136

Post by mceachen »

jeltz wrote: post #108
dagmx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean 300+ DPI? 3,000 seems higher than I imagine anyone could see or any printer could feasibly print at.

I think 300 DPI is just what is used for raster images. I think the text is usually printed at 2400 DPI.

FWIW, when printing film (which would then be used to expose plates, which would then be loaded on a standard web offset press), the dpi doesn't change when rendering film. Smaller dots allow for a finer-grained halftone pattern.

You'd choose different DPIs based on the paper the final print would go on, though (it took longer to print at higher DPIs: sometimes over an hour before the job got sent to the film printer). Newspaper has the worst dot gain, and got the lowest DPI. Coated stock had the best, and got higher DPI.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#137

Post by mceachen »

criddell wrote: post #119
sp332 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serifs are easier to read the more pixels you have to work with. For a printed book at 3,000+ DPI, serifs are fine (though it's still possible to overdo them!). For a high-res monitor, microserifs like the ones Consolas uses can help if your text is not too small. This font was designed for small sizes, where anything except the cleanest lines will simply cause blurriness.

Are books really printed at 3000 DPI?

Yes. See my replies above.

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#139

Post by niknetniko »

crazygringo wrote: post #38

I 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 initially had the same thoughts, especially regarding the increased height.

However, in Intellij (and other Jetbrains IDEs), they've recently increased the line spacing to (I currently use 1.1)

With the increased line spacing, I have had no trouble distinguishing between lower and upper case (to my surprise).

Re: JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers

#140

Post by ollien »

memco wrote: post #33

Nice font. I think it’s a bit sad that the only difference between zero and the letter O is the center dot: usually other fonts make the O slightly more round. This one is squarish. The site design is nice but I found it a bit odd that they didn’t include many of the similar character like O, 0, 1, l, I. That is one of the first things I look for and one of the primary reasons I would choose a new font.

I absolutely cannot stand dotted zeroes. I really wish it were slashed.
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