5 ms·

Input: Fonts for Code

106 points by ActsJuvenile 9y ago

jwr 9y ago
FWIW, the Input Mono family are the best coding and writing fonts I've found over the years, "Inconsolata" being a runner-up. These days I use Input fonts in Emacs, all terminals, and writing apps like Ulysses, also on iOS. Nothing else comes close in terms of readability.
- ActsJuvenile 9y ago
  I agree! Fira Code and Input are my top choices, and Inconsolata / Ricty Diminished Discord are pretty close second. I wish Input didn't remove ligatures from their latest release.
- kazinator 9y ago
  I found out about Consolas by way of Inconsolata. One day I spent an afternoon looking for a better coding font. I liked Inconsolata. When I Googled to find out more about it, I learned it is a knock-off of something that was hiding right under my very nose: Consolas found on Windows boxes. I tried that and found it better. I now have Consolas all over the place. I'm typing in it on Firefox. I have it in Ubuntu right inside Gnome terminal and other places. Thank you, Microsoft!
  - Double_a_92 9y ago
    Agree! Conolas it's the best for me. And it's already there.
- mattdennewitz 9y ago
  this is exactly right. condensed is my favorite, but there's no wrong answer.
Freak_NL 9y ago
Looks nice. Good thing they included stylistic alternatives for their default curly brackets, because that default would really bother me. I don't like the weird proprietary licence though. There are plenty of excellent free software fonts out there (e.g., Hack or its ancestor Deja Vu Sans Mono and sibling Ubuntu Mono — all three exist today because of the permissive licensing of their common ancestor Bitstream Vera).
noir_lord 9y ago
Nice but nothing will replace Iosevka for me now, the fact they have alternative glyphs for common programming usage and that you can rebuild the font to whichever set you want combined with extremely legibility at small sizes and a default condensed design (more characters per line for same width screen/window) makes it close to the perfect programming/terminal font imo.
- joombaga 9y ago
  Agreed. Coming from SourceCode Pro, everything seemed a bit taller, but adjusting the space between the lines fixed that perception. Looks smooth on my 2015 MBP, and external 24" 1920x1200 monitor.
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    My #2 is PragmataPro it still has nicer/more ligatures than iosevka but I expect that to get fixed over time. It's a beautiful (but not free/open) font though.
  - ActsJuvenile 9y ago
    Check out Hasklig: a fork of Source Code Pro with ligatures!
- indemnity 9y ago
  If you like Iosevka as much as I do, throw a few bucks the way of the creator via Patreon. (I’m not affiliated, just a big fan of the font).
delish 9y ago
I've wanted a proportional font for coding for a long time! I sympathize with Rob Pike: https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/567476552187641856 https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/567476552187641856 I much prefer reading proportional fonts. This new font solves a problem I've had: punctuation is hard to discern in proportional fonts. But I'll still have trouble with deeply-nested functions not lining up.
- hyperpape 9y ago
  In the example in that stream of tweets, you have: put = blah get = blah post = blah patch = blah gofmt accepts it as aligned, but the equals signs are visually unaligned when using a proportional font. I wonder what it would take to create an editing environment where you have a proportional font that shrinks or grows the (visual) whitespace to align those, and whether it could scale to things like nested functions.
  - e12e 9y ago
    Surely, one logical space of variable width is a tab? I prefer spaces to tabs - but if one makes concessions to readability like variable-width fonts - it's time to bring back tabs, too? (I do think this is a good idea, but "before" spaces won, in no small part because pre high-resolution screens, I think monospace was the better choice. With high dpi comes pretty layout - also of code).
    - teddyh 9y ago
      The solution: Elastic Tabstops (http://nickgravgaard.com/elastic-tabstops/ http://nickgravgaard.com/elastic-tabstops/)
      - ActsJuvenile 9y ago
        This is awesome - thank you!
    - Stratoscope 9y ago
mrzool 9y ago
Happy user of Input Mono ever since it came out back in 2014. Never looked back once!
walshemj 9y ago
Don't agree with there arguments about proportional fonts for coding though
thristian 9y ago
I tried switching all my UI fonts to Input recently, under Linux. Input Mono is pretty cool, but for whatever reason Input Sans and Input Serif have their kerning all messed up, making them very tiring to read. At least Linux seems to handle the multitude of visual weights decently these days; when Input first came out it seemed like Linux would pick one weight as Regular and one as Bold and every other weight was mapped to one of those two.
corford 9y ago
Maybe it's familiarity but having just tried this (and Iosevka recommended elsewhere in the thread), I much prefer Consolas. Find it a lot easier on my eyes (this is with the Monokai-Cobalt theme on VSCode).
nine_k 9y ago
I tried many programming fonts, and nothing so far was able to surpass the ergonomics of DejaVu Sans Mono.
alexeiz 9y ago
Beautiful writing, ugly font.

106 points by ActsJuvenile 9y ago

jwr 9y ago

FWIW, the Input Mono family are the best coding and writing fonts I've found over the years, "Inconsolata" being a runner-up. These days I use Input fonts in Emacs, all terminals, and writing apps like Ulysses, also on iOS. Nothing else comes close in terms of readability.

ActsJuvenile 9y ago
I agree! Fira Code and Input are my top choices, and Inconsolata / Ricty Diminished Discord are pretty close second. I wish Input didn't remove ligatures from their latest release.
kazinator 9y ago
I found out about Consolas by way of Inconsolata. One day I spent an afternoon looking for a better coding font. I liked Inconsolata. When I Googled to find out more about it, I learned it is a knock-off of something that was hiding right under my very nose: Consolas found on Windows boxes. I tried that and found it better. I now have Consolas all over the place. I'm typing in it on Firefox. I have it in Ubuntu right inside Gnome terminal and other places. Thank you, Microsoft!
- Double_a_92 9y ago
  Agree! Conolas it's the best for me. And it's already there.
mattdennewitz 9y ago
this is exactly right. condensed is my favorite, but there's no wrong answer.

Freak_NL 9y ago

Looks nice. Good thing they included stylistic alternatives for their default curly brackets, because that default would really bother me. I don't like the weird proprietary licence though. There are plenty of excellent free software fonts out there (e.g., Hack or its ancestor Deja Vu Sans Mono and sibling Ubuntu Mono — all three exist today because of the permissive licensing of their common ancestor Bitstream Vera).

noir_lord 9y ago

Nice but nothing will replace Iosevka for me now, the fact they have alternative glyphs for common programming usage and that you can rebuild the font to whichever set you want combined with extremely legibility at small sizes and a default condensed design (more characters per line for same width screen/window) makes it close to the perfect programming/terminal font imo.

joombaga 9y ago
Agreed. Coming from SourceCode Pro, everything seemed a bit taller, but adjusting the space between the lines fixed that perception. Looks smooth on my 2015 MBP, and external 24" 1920x1200 monitor.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  My #2 is PragmataPro it still has nicer/more ligatures than iosevka but I expect that to get fixed over time. It's a beautiful (but not free/open) font though.
- ActsJuvenile 9y ago
  Check out Hasklig: a fork of Source Code Pro with ligatures!
indemnity 9y ago
If you like Iosevka as much as I do, throw a few bucks the way of the creator via Patreon. (I’m not affiliated, just a big fan of the font).

delish 9y ago

I've wanted a proportional font for coding for a long time! I sympathize with Rob Pike: https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/567476552187641856 https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/567476552187641856 I much prefer reading proportional fonts. This new font solves a problem I've had: punctuation is hard to discern in proportional fonts. But I'll still have trouble with deeply-nested functions not lining up.

hyperpape 9y ago
In the example in that stream of tweets, you have: put = blah get = blah post = blah patch = blah gofmt accepts it as aligned, but the equals signs are visually unaligned when using a proportional font. I wonder what it would take to create an editing environment where you have a proportional font that shrinks or grows the (visual) whitespace to align those, and whether it could scale to things like nested functions.
- e12e 9y ago
  Surely, one logical space of variable width is a tab? I prefer spaces to tabs - but if one makes concessions to readability like variable-width fonts - it's time to bring back tabs, too? (I do think this is a good idea, but "before" spaces won, in no small part because pre high-resolution screens, I think monospace was the better choice. With high dpi comes pretty layout - also of code).
  - teddyh 9y ago
    The solution: Elastic Tabstops (http://nickgravgaard.com/elastic-tabstops/ http://nickgravgaard.com/elastic-tabstops/)
    - ActsJuvenile 9y ago
      This is awesome - thank you!
  - Stratoscope 9y ago

mrzool 9y ago

Happy user of Input Mono ever since it came out back in 2014. Never looked back once!

walshemj 9y ago

Don't agree with there arguments about proportional fonts for coding though

thristian 9y ago

I tried switching all my UI fonts to Input recently, under Linux. Input Mono is pretty cool, but for whatever reason Input Sans and Input Serif have their kerning all messed up, making them very tiring to read. At least Linux seems to handle the multitude of visual weights decently these days; when Input first came out it seemed like Linux would pick one weight as Regular and one as Bold and every other weight was mapped to one of those two.

corford 9y ago

Maybe it's familiarity but having just tried this (and Iosevka recommended elsewhere in the thread), I much prefer Consolas. Find it a lot easier on my eyes (this is with the Monokai-Cobalt theme on VSCode).

nine_k 9y ago

I tried many programming fonts, and nothing so far was able to surpass the ergonomics of DejaVu Sans Mono.

alexeiz 9y ago

Beautiful writing, ugly font.