this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Mine is mononoki

https://madmalik.github.io/mononoki/

It is a very minimal clean looking monospace font with support for ligatures. What is yours ?

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 9 months ago (3 children)

JetBrains Mono all the way.

There's also a new kid in town - Monaspace, its texture healing feature is pretty interesting. I might give it a try later.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

As a JetBrains Mono user for the past couple of years, I used Monaspace all day this past Friday to try it out, and it was not for me. The oval shape of JetBrains Mono glyphs is so aesthetically pleasing to me, and I don’t think I’d be able to switch to another font that doesn’t have similar styling.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Monaspace AUR-packaged fonts do not registered as monospace font in ArchLinux.

Though Konsole can be configured to use the font, Kitty does not recognize it. Manual install in macOS works for Kitty.

I like Neon and Argon variants of Monaspace.

My favorite was PragmataPro (not free) but it has different glyphs from Nerd Fonts. Similar ones are Iosevka, Victor, Mplus 1 code. Now new favorite is JetbrainsMono NF.

SF code, Fira Code are also in the favorite list.

Lab mono, fragment Mono are nice and planning to try them.

Generally I like condense (but not too condesed) round fonts.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I used to use Fira Code until I found Iosevka.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Fira Code, but I haven't used anything else with ligatures

[–] MonkCanatella 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Try this site and pin the ones you like to compare really easily. You can also change the code to whatever you like.

I think my main is Hack, though I really like Pragmata and Gintronic. Jetbrains and Firacode are pretty cool, though I much prefer the first three to either, and Jetbrains to firacode.

One thing I really like about Hack and Gintronic is the very laid back parentheses. They don't try to enclose the characters inside them like some fonts. They're both very readable, hack is compact, gintronic is more extended but it has this feeling of everything being a logical block. Pragmata I really like but hard to actually compare it because it's not on the site I shared above. Pragmata is I think as good as hack and gintronic, and it has the added benefit of having ligatures and nerd font glyphs built in! I'd probably prefer hack or gintronic overall if they had these features but they don't.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Can't beat Iosevka in my opinion. I use the Term variant for my shell as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Amen. I'm currently using Iosvmata, a custom build of Iosevka.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I like hack. I use it for everything.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Hack is my go to font as well, I’m sure part of that is due to it being well supported and easy to remember. Plus the lack of spaces in the name makes for less escape characters or quotes when defining it in config files.

The small but critical feature I look for in a font is a clear differentiation between the characters I, l, and 1.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

differentiation between the characters I, l, and 1. differentiation between the characters I, l, and 1.

... and betweem "rn" and "m" ... and betweem "rn" and "m"

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The one that comes with the IDE, because I don’t really care.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

That is fine as long as it is one where l1I are easy to distinguish.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I love MonaLisa a lot. I’ve been using it for pretty much all monospace throughout my computer. It feels very fine-tuned and well thought out, and it’s very readable too.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I was expecting someone to say wingdings when I posted the question, but this is one better 😁

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

I'm too old to die on any hills these days but mainly if it:

  • is mono spaced
  • doesn't change characters to something other than what they literally are

Then I'm happy

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

I love ligatures and Fira Code (retina) is the best and absolutely comfortable for me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Fira Code was my font of choice for a while, but now I use JetBrains Mono! Cascadia Code is also acceptable.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Ubuntu Mono since it was in beta and I heard the designer from Dalton Maag — the typeface design studio commissioned to design it — give a talk about how excited he was to be able to create a comprehensive, carefully thought out, and truly free/libre font.

I've never seen another one that I prefer the look of, and now it's imprinted in my brain. People love to crap on Shuttleworth / Canonical / Ubuntu, but there are a lot of great things they've contributed over the years.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm trying out the new monaspace font. The variable width of wide letters is interesting and seamless, you don't notice it happening.

Before that, I was using monolisa.

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[–] 257m 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Jetbrains Mono (Nerd Font). There is no other option for me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

likewise, with ligatures!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hack, just outright, so clean and clear and easy to read.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

And where l is not the same as 1

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

I've been trying a new font every few months for years - and then I discovered Intel One Mono:

https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono

Hard to describe what I like about the font but it just feels perfect.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I was using Inconsolata for about 5 years, then switched to Inconsolata-g when that came out, for another 5 years. But it's a pretty old font and is TrueType and it's hinting is bad, so doesn't render well on Linux and it misses out on a lot of new font features.

In 2019 I went hunting for a new favourite font, and tried out a whole bunch, giving each one a week in my IDE to really get to know it. During that time I realised I had a bunch of basic requirements for a font that some do better than others:

  • Similar characters should be distinct: eg, uppercase O and number 0. Uppercase I, lowercase l, and number 1. It's weird how many popular coding fonts fail to make these clear.

  • Not too wide, and not too narrow. You'd think monospace fonts are all around the same size horizontally, but a standard 80-column slab of code can vary greatly in screen space width depending on the font, some are much too wide. Consolas is an example that is too wide. I like to have the option to tile three code panes side-by-side on a 1080P screen.

  • Easy to read. For some reason a lot of coding-specific fonts affect my ability to quickly and easily read the code, and some give me a headache.

I realised that my use of Inconsolata for such a long time in the early stages of my career definitely shaped my preferences. I was looking for something similar to Inconsolata. That was when I discovered Fantasque Sans Mono. It's a kind of weird looking font, maybe a bit too playful for a serious coding font, but I found I could read and parse code much faster (maybe it helps with mild dyslexia?), each letter is very distinct from every other. It has elements of handwriting, it has elements of a dyslexic font, it has similarities to Inconsolata.

I've been using Fantasque (with Nerdfonts mixins) for 4 years now. Since then there has been a renaissance of code fonts, like Jet Brains Mono, and Fira Code. I like those, they are good fonts, but I keep going back to Fantasque, it feels so comfortable to use.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Default VS Code font, whatever that is. I prefer no ligatures; I find them distracting.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

IIRC, should be Cascadia Code.

Also, I’m the opposite. I love ligatures, I feel they make my code cleaner and remove extra noise.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Jetbrains Mono with Nerd Fonts

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Iosevka, 100%. I've tried out a few others, but I keep returning.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I've been liking Commit Mono recently. Otherwise, I usually use JetBrains Mono

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Ubuntu Mono. Though I don't use Ubuntu.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

My own variant of Iosevka

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Whatever is the default.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I have been partial to Proggy fonts for over a decade

http://proggyfonts.net/index.php?menu=download

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’ve used IBM Plex Mono for a long time. Currently giving github’s new Monaspace a try.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I use SauceCode Pro (variant of SourceCode Pro with nerdfonts stuff). I've given up on changing it because everytime I do I find stuff that's "non-standard" in the fonts I test and it bugs the hell out of me. @ signs are the absolute worst offenders, which is weird because they have a very uniform look everywhere that's not a specialized "programming" monospace font.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The standard @ symbol has four horizontal lines and worse the right side of the "a" is a vertical line contained inside a circle without touching it.

In a variable width font it's often fully twice as wide as a regular "a" character. The variable width font lemmy uses for example, at least as rendered by my computer has six pixels for a lowercase "a" and also six pixels for the small one contained inside the "@" symbol, then another six pixels of width for the circle around it.

That's an impossible task in a fixed width code font where users typically choose a size so small that the regular "a" can't be reduced any further while still being readable.

Which is why basically all code fonts (including Source Code Pro) cheat and modify the symbol so the inner circle overlaps the outer one on the right edge. Some of them do that better than others at inventing their own variant of @.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Using Cascadia Code as main font and trying out Monaspace as font for comments and git lens text.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Been using Input Mono for the past 5 or so years.

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