Source from HN because they have shadowbans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773594
I’m wondering too what you are looking for in a font. Good looks, features, options to enable or disable, ligatures?
Removed by mod
I’m not terribly picky, mostly just want to distinguish 0 from O and l from 1.
I rather like JetBrains mono though.
And l from I from | from 1. Stuff like that. And be pretty. And somewhat retro futuristic, without sacrificing readability.
Recently switched to Maple Mono because it is fun and cozy.
I’ve been using JetBrains Mono and Maple looks the same but nicer. Thanks!
Connected strokes in italic style, vivify your code.
That’s cool and interesting (you can see it in action and toggle-compare on the linked website)
I wonder how distracting it would be in code, though. If it is, their configurability allows skipping that feature though, which is great.
Yea, as its only applied to italics its less distracting than it might seem at first. Your IDE may not even use italics. In VSCode with my theme, italics are used for comments and variable names, which looks like this:
Why is ‘l’ the only cursive letter (and not connected to anything)? It’s kind of jarring
I like to use this style of italics for keywords. (That’s also what the Maple examples do.) My thinking is you see keywords so often that you recognize them by shape, not by reading the individual letters. And my theory is that the italic variant being a little harder to read helps my eyes skim over keywords, to focus more on words that I do need to read precisely, like variable names.
It does mean that I spend some time customizing my syntax highlighting theme to make it work the way I prefer. I’ve got examples set up on my blog. Although that’s not Maple - it’s a different font with cursive italics called Cartograph CF.
Oh wow that looks pretty and also makes total sense in theory. I think I have seen it in other places as well and might just steal that. :) Thank you for pointing that out.
I don’t like that one and the same character looks different on the same line (here
console.log).
This is a great find. Thank you very much kind internet stranger
Yes! I built my own variant using their tool (removing the weird italic l etc). I love it.
No ligatures, and no ambiguity between O and 0, l and 1 and I, etc.
No serifs too, I guess. Although I don’t think that’s very common in coding fonts.
Nice to look at. Disambiguates commonly confused characters (
l,1,I;0,O).Ligatures, slashed zeros, clearly distinguishable Il1/O0, not too big of a gap between lines, and maybe script-like italics. My current main monospace font is IosevkaTerm Nerd Font.
I also find the idea of using retro pixel fonts interesting, but so far couldn’t get myself to actually try some of the fonts mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708411 .
I use Fira Code for coding, mostly because of the ligatures. For console I use Inconsolata because it’s compact and good for long console lines.
I admit that https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode has the best presentation.
I want it to be Iosevka
Thank you for reminding me of this font name. I did a clean install of my OS a few weeks back, and forgot the terminal font I had been using
I love Input sans because it gives me a very pleasant retro vibe, especially at heavy weights.
Good readability of code.
Mainly that I can clearly distinguish Il1 and 0O. I like DejaVu Sans Mono because it does that; if I’m limited to fonts preinstalled on Windows, Lucida Console works too.
I am picky and get bored all the time. These fonts below have had my attention for significant period of time.
- Used Hack for sometime and got bored of the weird diamond on the zero. Hence, downloaded HackSlash, A patched variant with slashed zero.
- Fira Code
- Source Code Pro
- Customized version of Iosevka mixed with monaco.
- Input mono but I changed the variants to get curved i, l, J
- Ubuntu mono
- Maple Mono (Latest I am trying)
- Menlo
- Consolas
- PT Mono
- Red Hat Mono
- CodeNewRoman Nerd Font
Someone mentioned codingfont.com… but I spoil it for myself by immediately recognizing the fonts I already got weary of and get varying results just like if I let my picky self choose.
Edit: Probably forgot to mention that I have tried the Nerd font variants and exclusively the NF variants of above fonts like CodeNewRoman NF, BlexMono, CommitMono NF
Not much, disambiguous characters mostly. I’ve been using M Plus for years because I sometimes need CJK glyphs. Inconsolata, Fira Code, etc. look OK to me. Still haven’t found the perfect typeface to fill my developer-typographic font void.
I love iosevka because it’s so condensed. You can fit so much on the screen.
I love narrow fonts because it feels like regular text, but monospaced at the same time, and lines are easier to read too.
I am a big fan of MonoLisa, but it is a paid font.
I wasn’t convinced initially (never paid for a font before!) and found some version of it online, found that I liked it very much, then willingly parted with my money for a license.
I really like the difference between normal and italics, I set up my code editor to use italics for comments.
When you said ‘paid’ I was thinking £5, not £50 (for the basic version!)
On PragmataPro, I know it’s a bit pricey (60 euros) but I’ve been using 12 hours a day for years, it has a lot of characters available, supposedly hand-made, and the guy updates it regularly.
I have bought software that was more expensive but had way less usefulness.
Yeah that’s why I found an “evaluation” version before. Once I saw it was genuinely great I was happy to pay for a license.
I look at this font 12+ hours a day everyday for work, if this was just for ricing a terminal window I agree it is a bit steep.
Distinct lower case connections
I stopped reading right there 🙂
