4 ms·

This is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? Proportional and serif fonts exist for a reason: they make long paragraphs of text more

by imiric 4y ago

This is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? Proportional and serif fonts exist for a reason: they make long paragraphs of text more pleasant to read. Words can be better identified by their shape, which makes them easier to distinguish at a glance. I suppose you could have a separate terminal configuration with a different font for this app, but standalone reader apps or, better yet, e-ink devices, do a much better job of making text easier to read for long periods of time.

zozbot234 4y ago
We are still quite far from having truly "pleasant to read" long-form text in our computers or browsers. Real typesetting programs use optimized line setting and micro-adjustments in typography to make long stretches of text a bit easier on the eyes, but there's no support for this either in browsers or in most word processors intended for basic office use.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>This is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? You might be surprised. For example, Chinese and Japanese very commonly use monospaced fonts. On a less pedantic note, personally I find monospaced fonts slightly easier to see and read. Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier.
- stefncb 4y ago
  To be fair, writing systems like those have much more uniform characters. They don't have these immense width differences like with i and m.
- messe 4y ago
  > Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier. Unless you’re reading one letter at a time, consciously moving your eyes from one to the next, I’m struggling to see how that would be the case.
- claudionaoto 4y ago
  Chinese and Japanese characters have many details. In low resolution (like old terminals) they are almost illegible.
kristopolous 4y ago
Some people find it more accessible for themselves. Isn't it great to live in a time with so many options?
sw104 4y ago
Wholly agree, but to each their own. I, and many people, just don't want to read a book in monospaced font, sat at a desk with a desktop PC/laptop. I'd take a Kindle/e-reader over that setup any day. I can read in bed, on a bench outside, in 10/15 minute gaps throughout the day, can make a 2 hour train/bus ride fly past. The most pleasant of all is sitting under a tree on a spring/summer day. Neat project nonetheless. Any reading is better than no reading.
reaperducer 4y ago
While I agree that dead trees and e-ink are far superior to reading in a terminal, it's not so bad, even with aging eyes. In some ways is kind of soothing, as long as you have the brightness and contrast set appropriately. Back when the internet was all text, there were people in the UK who would transcribe their favorite television shows into text files. UUCPing or cating these scripts into a local machine was the only source of British humor in some parts of the world. I read the entirety of Red Dwarf as fan-transcribed text files on a terminal 15 years before I was able to see it in video.
- throwanem 4y ago
  As a kid in my sophomore year of high school, I read the whole 3.0.0 Jargon File on the 15" CRT of my 386 - in Turbo Pascal, because it was the only thing I had that could open so large a file. (A whole megabyte! I messed around with building an index and a per-entry viewer, but never got very far because my motivation was limited by being able to just read the file directly.) I'd "borrowed" the Turbo Pascal installer via an understanding undergrad at the local college, who was perfectly eager to help expand my horizons; the Jargon File came by way of the shovelware directories that old video game magazine cover CDs used to have. Poor as I would later come to know it to be, it was still my first real exposure to the idea of a subculture built around computers and their use, and the first thing that gave me to realize that there might be a larger social context into which my until then small-town and very solitary style of weirdness might fit - which I like to think was more or less what the fellow nerds who put together the CD master had in mind. (That, and maybe a bit of "how you gonna keep him down on the farm?" puckishness...) I wouldn't want to go back to just reading from a CRT, though. Phone screens being as far from ideal as they are, they're still much better at rendering text, and considerably wieldier especially in bed.
ergonaught 4y ago
Because they want to do so. Does it need any other justification or explanation?
- imiric 4y ago
  I'm not looking for a fight or justification, relax. Was just genuinely curious why someone would prefer this.
nbk_2000 4y ago
My favorite quote regarding typeface preference: "Readers read best what they read most." - Zuzana Licko Also, if you want to go down the rabbit hole, some good studies have been conducted on this subject [1]. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/best-font-for-online-reading/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/best-font-for-online-readin...
ASalazarMX 4y ago
Monospaced fonts are not hard to read, if you like what you're reading, after a couple of minutes you won't even notice the font anymore. Besides, coders are used to read long texts in monospace, and people used to do that before GUIs without issues.

by imiric 4y ago

zozbot234 4y ago

We are still quite far from having truly "pleasant to read" long-form text in our computers or browsers. Real typesetting programs use optimized line setting and micro-adjustments in typography to make long stretches of text a bit easier on the eyes, but there's no support for this either in browsers or in most word processors intended for basic office use.

Dalewyn 4y ago

>This is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? You might be surprised. For example, Chinese and Japanese very commonly use monospaced fonts. On a less pedantic note, personally I find monospaced fonts slightly easier to see and read. Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier.

stefncb 4y ago
To be fair, writing systems like those have much more uniform characters. They don't have these immense width differences like with i and m.
messe 4y ago
> Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier. Unless you’re reading one letter at a time, consciously moving your eyes from one to the next, I’m struggling to see how that would be the case.
claudionaoto 4y ago
Chinese and Japanese characters have many details. In low resolution (like old terminals) they are almost illegible.

kristopolous 4y ago

Some people find it more accessible for themselves. Isn't it great to live in a time with so many options?

sw104 4y ago

Wholly agree, but to each their own. I, and many people, just don't want to read a book in monospaced font, sat at a desk with a desktop PC/laptop. I'd take a Kindle/e-reader over that setup any day. I can read in bed, on a bench outside, in 10/15 minute gaps throughout the day, can make a 2 hour train/bus ride fly past. The most pleasant of all is sitting under a tree on a spring/summer day. Neat project nonetheless. Any reading is better than no reading.

reaperducer 4y ago

While I agree that dead trees and e-ink are far superior to reading in a terminal, it's not so bad, even with aging eyes. In some ways is kind of soothing, as long as you have the brightness and contrast set appropriately. Back when the internet was all text, there were people in the UK who would transcribe their favorite television shows into text files. UUCPing or cating these scripts into a local machine was the only source of British humor in some parts of the world. I read the entirety of Red Dwarf as fan-transcribed text files on a terminal 15 years before I was able to see it in video.

throwanem 4y ago
As a kid in my sophomore year of high school, I read the whole 3.0.0 Jargon File on the 15" CRT of my 386 - in Turbo Pascal, because it was the only thing I had that could open so large a file. (A whole megabyte! I messed around with building an index and a per-entry viewer, but never got very far because my motivation was limited by being able to just read the file directly.) I'd "borrowed" the Turbo Pascal installer via an understanding undergrad at the local college, who was perfectly eager to help expand my horizons; the Jargon File came by way of the shovelware directories that old video game magazine cover CDs used to have. Poor as I would later come to know it to be, it was still my first real exposure to the idea of a subculture built around computers and their use, and the first thing that gave me to realize that there might be a larger social context into which my until then small-town and very solitary style of weirdness might fit - which I like to think was more or less what the fellow nerds who put together the CD master had in mind. (That, and maybe a bit of "how you gonna keep him down on the farm?" puckishness...) I wouldn't want to go back to just reading from a CRT, though. Phone screens being as far from ideal as they are, they're still much better at rendering text, and considerably wieldier especially in bed.

ergonaught 4y ago

Because they want to do so. Does it need any other justification or explanation?

imiric 4y ago
I'm not looking for a fight or justification, relax. Was just genuinely curious why someone would prefer this.

nbk_2000 4y ago

My favorite quote regarding typeface preference: "Readers read best what they read most." - Zuzana Licko Also, if you want to go down the rabbit hole, some good studies have been conducted on this subject [1]. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/best-font-for-online-reading/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/best-font-for-online-readin...

ASalazarMX 4y ago

Monospaced fonts are not hard to read, if you like what you're reading, after a couple of minutes you won't even notice the font anymore. Besides, coders are used to read long texts in monospace, and people used to do that before GUIs without issues.