Thanks, that's one snazzy programming font. I'm definitely giving it a try.
Edit: it's nice at small sizes. They should have made a hairline variant though, for larger sizes, as it's pretty bold and the characters aren't as distinct as the could be. Think I'll keep using it for a while longer and see how it goes
Courier New (Visual Studio). I keep trying other stuff, but they are a distraction. Courier New does not draw attention to itself, just seems to blend in, and the code communicates directly to you.
Courier Prime is a very attractive font. Unfortunately the leading (inter-line spacing, pronounced "ledding") is 18% bigger than Courier New. In a full screen of code, I lose 7 lines. That means less visible code, more scrolling up & down. I suppose there are font editors to adjust that.
I like Ubuntu Mono, but on some screens (probably depending on antialiasing settings?) it looks too fuzzy and I switch to Inconsolata. It seems one of those two will look good in any setting. Or if I have to deal with no anti-aliasing, Proggy TT is a nice (small, ~9pt) monochrome font.
What triangle character are you using there in your prompt? Sorry, but I haven't found a way to make it 'stick' to the background before it using any font (at least at 14pt).
Edit: OK, I found the character/theme you are using, but what version of Ubuntu Mono do you have? It won't handle that for me :/
Edit 2: I found a Powerline patched version, but that doesn't seem to work either… Maybe I will just switch back to Consolas
I used Inconsolata, Monaco, Source Code Pro, Consolas, Pragmata Pro, but in the end settled with Ubuntu Mono. I use it in Vim with the great Solarized color scheme, and it's a pleasure to look at.
I actually tried a programming font that is not monospace and it's not an issue. Left side is aligned the same anyway and I don't care if lines don't align on the right side.
That is an interesting observation. Perhaps it is due to habit. After 45 years of programming (started with punched cards), I am accustomed to fixed-pitch fonts. Proportional fonts for code seem unintelligible to me.
It is worth noting that all quality programming publications display code in fixed pitch. Knuth, in his epochal "Art of Computer Programming", uses fixed-pitch serif for source code. Petzold's "Programming Windows" uses fixed-pitch, as does Kernighan & Ritchie's "The C Programming Language".
Because I work with data pretty often, and working with data pretty much requires a monospace font, and there's no reason for me to switch back and forth.
For example, cli mysql wouldn't be too much fun in Geneva. There's a nice visual hint between labels and data in lines of whois output, and that hint would be icky in a proportional typeface:
status: reallocated
owner: NETLINE PERU
ownerid: PE-NEPE4-LACNIC
Also, log files with columns like timestamp [ip] etc., and some particularly friendly configuration files.
And, although it's not very common, I occasionally use it as a typo-checker. If I have a function or a class where I can't easily abstract out some kind of repetition, then using a monospaced font with variables that are the same number of characters lets me visually see right away if I've mistyped something. I couldn't quickly find an example, but it was the first programming-specific monospace font thing that came to mind.
I am hugely anal about this topic and I've tried all fonts mentioned at the time of this post. In the end, Consolas has racked up the most miles during my coding and Proggy Tiny for the output console (allows you to fit quite a lot). Don't get me started on color theme.
I would humbly suggest trying either MonteCarlo [1] or its derivative, Tamsyn [2]. Certain characters (like the "@" symbol) look much better in either of these fonts.
My favorite is Source Code Pro by Adobe [1]. I use it on Mac OS X and Ubuntu. On Windows I have to use Consolas, because SCP does not render well in gVim for Windows (at least not on my system).
Note that Source Code Pro does not have an Italic typeface yet. Italics are commonly used for source code comments and most editors will automatically emulate the shapes, often with poor results. Active development is currently being done in this direction [2].
You are right. From reading the comments on the issue [2], this seems to be the reason why it takes so long. Although I have now idea of how fonts are made, I think the work needs to be done for all currently available weights (7 different weights).
The glyphs can look completely different in italic. http://www.fffranziska.com/#sec_italics And after drawing the glyphs, manually checking and adjusting the kerning between every pair of glyphs takes a lot of time too.
Just a minor nitpick: you are probably referring to an oblique style, not italic. Italic style implies a calligraphic handwriting look-alike, and is way more common with serif typefaces. Oblique style is just glyphs tilted to right, and I think that's what you meant here. No offense intended, of course.
77 comments
[ 91.2 ms ] story [ 2544 ms ] threadOtherwise I think it was Monaco way before those.
It's a combination of Inconsolata for Latin characters and an IPA font variant called Migu 1M for Japanese characters in the same dimensions.
I've never seen it as a binary, so you have to run a script to build it yourself.
https://github.com/yascentur/Ricty
I'm using a fairly old version of emacs without Xft2 support so use codec[1] with it.
[1] http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/cannam/codec.html
In my terminal: Source Code Pro https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Source+Code+Pro
Meslo. Can't get enough of it.
Liberation Mono (in Vim / Terminal)
I use it in Sublime Text and also for my Terminal Monokai theme: https://github.com/Pephers/monokai-for-terminal-app
Note there's an S in Cosmic :)
https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans
Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
Here an example of Sublime Text 3 + Ubuntu Mono 10pt + Blackboard Theme: http://imgur.com/qW8yyi0
Edit: OK, I found the character/theme you are using, but what version of Ubuntu Mono do you have? It won't handle that for me :/
Edit 2: I found a Powerline patched version, but that doesn't seem to work either… Maybe I will just switch back to Consolas
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/styleguide/products/firefox-os... (not displayed, but the download includes a Mono variant)
Not left edges. Even in non-monospace fonts, every blank is the same with, same with every tab.
It is worth noting that all quality programming publications display code in fixed pitch. Knuth, in his epochal "Art of Computer Programming", uses fixed-pitch serif for source code. Petzold's "Programming Windows" uses fixed-pitch, as does Kernighan & Ritchie's "The C Programming Language".
But in the code itself, this isn't a consideration.
For example, cli mysql wouldn't be too much fun in Geneva. There's a nice visual hint between labels and data in lines of whois output, and that hint would be icky in a proportional typeface:
Also, log files with columns like timestamp [ip] etc., and some particularly friendly configuration files.And, although it's not very common, I occasionally use it as a typo-checker. If I have a function or a class where I can't easily abstract out some kind of repetition, then using a monospaced font with variables that are the same number of characters lets me visually see right away if I've mistyped something. I couldn't quickly find an example, but it was the first programming-specific monospace font thing that came to mind.
I would humbly suggest trying either MonteCarlo [1] or its derivative, Tamsyn [2]. Certain characters (like the "@" symbol) look much better in either of these fonts.
[1] http://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/ [2] http://www.fial.com/~scott/tamsyn-font/
Note that Source Code Pro does not have an Italic typeface yet. Italics are commonly used for source code comments and most editors will automatically emulate the shapes, often with poor results. Active development is currently being done in this direction [2].
[1]. http://dwabyick.github.io/Source-Code-Pro
[2]. https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-code-pro/issues/6
So the time needed is probably shorter than the time spent on the regular variant, but only by a small factor, certainly not orders of magnitude.
http://input.fontbureau.com/preview/