4 ms·

Besides fancy programming fonts (which I have mixed feelings about), ligatures and other complex text shaping features can also be necessary for legibly renderi

Besides fancy programming fonts (which I have mixed feelings about), ligatures and other complex text shaping features can also be necessary for legibly rendering string literals in some non-Latin scripts, like Arabic script. Even if your code is all in Latin letters, you might have test data, UI text, etc., that's in something else.

wcarss 9y ago
Thank you for providing this insight -- I'm one of the seemingly rare few who hates ligatures in my Latin-script fonts, and when I saw this submission my brain leapt to "augh, why!?" -- you've given at least one very clear use-case where ligature support is valuable, which I was totally unaware of.
- trumpeta 9y ago
  The cool thing about ligatures is that they are a property of the font, not of the text, so I can have a font with ligatures and you can have one without.
- inferiorhuman 9y ago
  This was the most recent blurb on HN I've seen about fonts with ligatures for coding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14821446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14821446 I've mixed feelings about the idea, but generally seem to like the combination of Atom and Fira Code.
- drivingmenuts 9y ago
  I've been using Fira Code for a while and having ligatures does make code a bit easier for me to read. I certainly could live without the feature, but if it's there, I'm going to turn it on. Which, ultimately, is what matters. You actually have to turn it on in Jetbrain's editors. It's a decent "no harm, no foul" feature.
  - computerex 9y ago
    I tried to get ligatures to work in gvim for so long because Fira Code looks wonderful with ligatures. Could not make it work :(
hasenj 9y ago
Are you saying this version of SL supports rendering Arabic with proper shaping?
- PeCaN 9y ago
  Since it now uses DirectWrite, it should support Arabic well, at least on Windows. DirectWrite handles shaping for a bunch of scripts.
amelius 9y ago
Perhaps the editor should include a method to turn this kind of options on/off with special sequences e.g. in comments.
- usrusr 9y ago
  That, or just don't apply ligatures to basic Latin characters. I suppose that people who like using international characters for their identifiers would not mind having ligatures applied to them. Solved by font selection.

wcarss 9y ago

Thank you for providing this insight -- I'm one of the seemingly rare few who hates ligatures in my Latin-script fonts, and when I saw this submission my brain leapt to "augh, why!?" -- you've given at least one very clear use-case where ligature support is valuable, which I was totally unaware of.

trumpeta 9y ago
The cool thing about ligatures is that they are a property of the font, not of the text, so I can have a font with ligatures and you can have one without.
inferiorhuman 9y ago
This was the most recent blurb on HN I've seen about fonts with ligatures for coding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14821446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14821446 I've mixed feelings about the idea, but generally seem to like the combination of Atom and Fira Code.
drivingmenuts 9y ago
I've been using Fira Code for a while and having ligatures does make code a bit easier for me to read. I certainly could live without the feature, but if it's there, I'm going to turn it on. Which, ultimately, is what matters. You actually have to turn it on in Jetbrain's editors. It's a decent "no harm, no foul" feature.
- computerex 9y ago
  I tried to get ligatures to work in gvim for so long because Fira Code looks wonderful with ligatures. Could not make it work :(

hasenj 9y ago

Are you saying this version of SL supports rendering Arabic with proper shaping?

PeCaN 9y ago
Since it now uses DirectWrite, it should support Arabic well, at least on Windows. DirectWrite handles shaping for a bunch of scripts.

amelius 9y ago

Perhaps the editor should include a method to turn this kind of options on/off with special sequences e.g. in comments.

usrusr 9y ago
That, or just don't apply ligatures to basic Latin characters. I suppose that people who like using international characters for their identifiers would not mind having ligatures applied to them. Solved by font selection.