programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
I've experimented with programming fonts and IDE color schemes plenty in the past. But now that I've given in to the inevitability of ClearType on large LCDs, I've basically settled on Consolas. It's hard to beat Consolas. It's darn close to the ultimate monospace programming font in my estimation. That's why I was so intrigued when I read about Inconsolata, a non-denominational OpenType relative of Consolas, which unlike Consolas, works equally well with ClearType enabled or disabled.
Once I tried out Inconsolata, I figured I might as well revisit all the common, popular programming fonts under the same conditions. So here goes. These are rendered under Windows Vista, with ClearType enabled, using my standard programming font comparison code sample.
Consolas, 11 point.
Inconsolata, 11 point.
Monaco, 11 point.
Envy R, 11 point.
Vera Sans Mono, 11 point.
Pragmata, 11 point.
Courier New, 11 point.
Lucida Typewriter, 11 point.
The Font of the Gods, 11 point.
Andale Mono, 11 point.
Choice of programming font is as much a personal preference as anything else. Decide for yourself what works for you. I'll limit my comments to a few observations:
I use Courier New 10pt and it rocks.
kevin on October 5, 2007 11:58 AMYou're all wrong.. "Courier" - not "Courier New" rocks.
crips, clear, and an good number of lines fit on screen (it has less inter-line spacing)
Fascinating. I don't have a big stake in this, but I did notice that in the examples Consolas loops pretty good as well as having nice weight while keeping characters cleanly separated.
One factor concerning Courier New, what I mainly use now for code snippets in documentation as well as when viewing code in editors, Notepad, etc., is that it is a serif font, and the others are all sans serif. I think this has an influence on acceptability for different people depending on their comfort with serif and sans serif. (Just speculating).
I can understand why monospace is used though. I work without tabs (and tabs are expanded to spaces on entry) so that the ASCII "art" of code layout is preserved, along with nice arrangements of two-dimensional material in comments.
I am extremely accustomed to Courier New (and face="monospace" in web presentation of code-like material). I am not sure I can change to consolas in published "code" but I am willing to try it in my editor to see if it eases things for me.
orcmid on October 5, 2007 12:02 PMFixedsys +1
White on Black +1 -- I actually prefer Light Grey on Black, less eyestrain.
Consolas is a nice looking font, for sure, but some of the characters are a little too alike : l and 1 for example. The c isn't rounded the same top and bottom; the += isn't lined up properly and - is too short (something Monaco gets right). Those sorts of issues wouldn't drive me as nuts as Jeff's chosen colour scheme though o_O Do you suffer from ADHD or something? :D
Dino on October 5, 2007 12:26 PMInconsolata has no hinting hence the blurring as it lands whever it likes. The others tend to fit into whole pixels vertically.
Inconsolata is very nice at larger sizes however needs bold/italic variants.
Those people suggesting Dina/Proggy etc. are totally missing the point here which is to talk about scalable fonts which utilise ClearType. Check Jeff's previous posts for bitmapped pixel font recommendations.
If you like your fonts sharp but enjoy ClearType definitely try Envy Code R at 10 point. It's like a pixel font but with smooth corners and diagonals. As a bonus it includes an italic-as-bold variant to let you have italics within Visual Studio.
[)amien
Damien Guard on October 5, 2007 1:04 PMBy the way, Monaco was designed by icon icon Susan Kare, IIUC.
Sunnan on October 5, 2007 1:06 PMLike James Ellis (@03:38 PM) I use DejaVu Sans Mono. Bitstream Vera, with better Unicode coverage.
josephdietrich on October 5, 2007 1:09 PMThis Consolas font is great!
But looks good only with ClearType turned on.
What kind of colours or themes are you people using in Visual Studio?
Case on October 5, 2007 1:09 PMCONSOLAS-4-LIFE-MAYNE
Donn Felker on October 5, 2007 1:11 PMPosted by Andrew R: "I still use CRTs at home for the simple reason that no LCD can match the mighty Trinitron's dotpitch."
Isn't that advantage gone after a year or so with the degradation of the screen?
Rob Janssen on October 5, 2007 1:39 PMA personal preference, but the font renderer used looks like a pretty poor one compared to OSXes. Also, it's difficult to judge the differences in the typeface when distracted by the (unsightly) choice of colors.
When you add fonts to your Windows system, they generally show up for all applications---except Command Prompt (cmd.exe). I found it was non-trivial to get most fonts working there. I ended up hacking some metadata in sheldon4.fon to make it work. If anyone is interested, I've put it up my version at
http://grosskurth.ca/typography/sheldon4.fon
Just drop it into it into WINDOWS\Fonts and then you should see a second 7x12 entry for Raster Fonts in the CommandPrompt properties called SheldonCmd.
Alan on October 5, 2007 1:51 PMDoes anyone else have problems with ClearType on rotated displays? At 90 degrees the RGB subpixels are arranged vertically and no setting looks good (IMHO).
Joe on October 7, 2007 6:46 AMI can't believe no one said
BSU-Kermit.
I really like that and Dina.
I have used Consolas and liked it as well. The only problem with most programming fonts is that the sizes are generally fixed to 8 or 10.
...
hobbylobby on October 7, 2007 8:33 AMGreg Bowers,
"LCDs are ONLY clear at their native resolutions."
Well, yes, that's my point. What about CRTs?
"Anyway, I couldn't use my 21" Trinitron at higher than 1280x960."
So your eyes were the limiting factor?
In other words; the device achieved the precision you desired.
"I really can't accept that any electron-gun device can be more precise than a reasonable quality LCD."
It doesn't take much deep thought to realise that the reverse must be true;
* An electron gun's precision is dependant on the incorporeal nature of magnetic lines of force - a thing which has only the Planck length as it's natural barrier to absolute precision - and the optical convertor could be as small as 1 molecule with no physical connections.
* An LCD's precision is limited by the mechanical size that workable (say 10^15 molecules per) liquid crystals can be arranged in helical patterns and the wiring needed to electrically address each of them.
In other words; A CRT-esque system is theoretically capable of a few hundred billion times the precision of LCDs.
The capitalistic nature of our encomony though has prevented the making of decent screens (of either type) - apparently our eyes aren't worth it and our wallets voted for cheaper, smaller, crappier displays.
"In my view, LCDs are too crisp without ClearType. I find ClearType makes the text look more "robust", more like printed text than without, LCD or CRT."
Fair enough. That is an entirely subjective statement. I must admit, some of the fonts discussed here (I've tried them out) have been the best I've ever seen ClearType look. I still don't like the effect though.
A few months back, Red Hat released a set of fonts called Liberation for free use. Among them is Liberation Mono, which I've become a huge fan of and have taken to using for code. They're available as standard TrueType fonts here: https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/
Christopher Cashell on October 7, 2007 1:14 PMWow, Consolas is my favorite by far.
Joe Smith on October 7, 2007 1:44 PMI can't help it, but ClearType always looks blurry to me and hurts my eyes. From the screenshots above I find Vera Sans Mono to still look acceptable, but I still prefer to turn ClearType off.
And yes, I'm using TFTs.
Moritz on October 8, 2007 7:22 AMI'd like to play with my font and color settings, but I'm stuck with VS2003 which makes switching UI schemes a pain. Apparently there is a good VS2003 add-in called VS-Styler, which makes switching around color and font settings really easy. Unfortunately, it was hosted on gotdotnet.com, which was phased out. anyone know where I can find it? Google is no help at all.
Joe on October 8, 2007 8:27 AMDoes anyone else have problems with ClearType on rotated displays? At 90 degrees the RGB subpixels are arranged vertically and no setting looks good (IMHO).
Try Microsoft's ClearType Tuning PowerToy to tweak the ClearType settings; if I remember correctly you can set the subpixels vertically or horizontally with this tool.
I've tried it before and checked it again, not the wizard nor the 'advanced' tab have a solution.
GAH!!!! Comic Sans!! IT BURNS MY EYES.
http://bancomicsans.com/home.html
I use Consolas. Best. Coding. Font. Ever.
+1 using proportional fonts for coding. Can be a little harder to select text, but the improved readability more than makes up for it. As for vertical alignment: I don't get fancy with it; proportional fonts handle my needs just fine. On Windows, I use Tahoma.
For another great fixed-width font, check out Anonymous by Mark Simonson. TrueType, free. Lovely, I think.
http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymous.html
Does anyone else have problems with ClearType on rotated displays? At 90 degrees the RGB subpixels are arranged vertically and no setting looks good (IMHO).
Try Microsoft's ClearType Tuning PowerToy to tweak the ClearType settings; if I remember correctly you can set the subpixels vertically or horizontally with this tool.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx
Well, it's no wonder Mac users like Monaco more than Windows users, it *does* look significantly better when rendered on a Mac than on Windows. When talking about anti-aliased fonts in larger sizes though, sure there are better alternatives. Jacob Rus said it, Monaco really dows look its best bitmapped and in 9 or 10pt (and 9pt Monaco was actually the OS font for icon labels in the Finder, later on upped to 10pt). But I think you'd be hardpressed to find a font that does a better job than Monaco of looking good (on the Mac at least) both as a small bitmap and as a scalable, anti-aliased programming font.
Take a look at this:
http://lemonodor.com/images/macsbug.gif
Bitmapped 9pt Monaco. Looks a lot like that ProFont some people rave about here, if you ask me.
For me personally though, I'll stick with Courier. The serifs really do ease legibility, in my opinion - and it saves vertical space.
Oli on October 10, 2007 9:58 AMthere is only one ultimate font, and it's Fixedsys, and FixedsysTTF, there is no better monotype font out there, Consolas and Courier and all other is a crap together with totaly useless ClearType... nobel price for the one who invented fixedsys ;]
meteor on October 11, 2007 3:40 AMTo me Consolas wins hands down.
I've been a fan of Anonymous for some time, but Consolas is pretty nice now.
Andrew, I think you're failing to see the forest for the trees. There is a difference between "precision" and "accuracy", and CRTs with electron guns and analog connections are subject to many factors that badly affect the accuracy of what's being displayed, regardless of how precise the electron gun itself might be. An LCD, with a digital connection and discrete pixels, suffers from none of these sources of interference.
The capitalistic nature of our encomony though has prevented the making of decent screens
One might instead say that capitalism has GIVEN us the opportunity to make any screens at all. What superior display technologies have managed economies given to us?
Chris Wuestefeld on October 12, 2007 10:44 AMDon't forget to try the Bolds! Nothing beats Vera Sans Bold in my experience. White on black.
Laurence Penney on October 14, 2007 8:24 AMInconsolata works great on Mac. I'm new to the Mac crowd, and coming from Windows, Monaco hurt my eyes. Thanks for the find!
Eric on October 15, 2007 4:52 AMNothing has worked better than Dina for me.. It is extremely well-balanced font.
(For some strange reason, any truetype font like Consolas that I install, does not work properly. It shows up quite blurry. The truetype fonts installed alongwith Windows (like Arial and Verdana) work absolutely fine)
something on October 31, 2007 7:13 AMConsolas RULE!
JCNV on November 1, 2007 9:10 AMInconsolata is in Debian apparently, so anyone running Debian that wants to try it, just install the "ttf-inconsolata" package. Probably in Ubuntu too.
Reed on November 5, 2007 12:17 PMJoe wrote:
" Try Microsoft's ClearType Tuning PowerToy to tweak the ClearType settings; if I remember correctly you can set the subpixels vertically or horizontally with this tool.
I've tried it before and checked it again, not the wizard nor the 'advanced' tab have a solution."
Try this:
a href="http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/"http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak//a
I believe that vertical sub pixels are supported on Vista but not on XP, but don't have Vista to check this.
Elliot on November 15, 2007 10:18 AMOn Mac, I like Monaco size 9, but unless you are running at a low resolution, it's too small, IMO. Sadly, I find the larger sizes simply unattractive, so Monaco is not really an option for me at 1600x1200 or 1440x900(what I'm normally running). However, X11's -misc-fixed 18(misc/9x18.pcf.gz) is wonderful at those resolutions and appears to have support for many unicode characters. The only standard gripe that I have with it is the lack of a slash through the zero.
James William Pye on November 16, 2007 12:46 PMAnother vote for IBM3270 at 12 points, coming from someone who spends 8 hours a day in front of a 32 inch LCD.
Darren Ogawa
Developer/Analyst
International Telegram Service
On OSX I use Monaco 12 but on Windows I have to use Monaco 8 to get good results.
dipnlik on December 11, 2007 11:08 AMThere's a Greek foundry called Backpacker that makes a nice font called BPMono. The curlies are a bit too similar to one another and the brackets are a bit too vertical. Otherwise perfect. Here: http://www.backpacker.gr/pages/fonts/fonts.asp
Moi on January 10, 2008 12:24 PMDejavu / Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for me.
ka2 on February 1, 2008 3:45 AMFor the windows(yech) users: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net
ka2 on February 1, 2008 3:46 AMVery nice roundup of some of the best fonts available.
Inconsolata looks fuzzy in your shot and on my 19" LCD screen too.
You might want to add Droid Sans Mono to the mix. And perhaps move Envy Code R next to Pragmata. Has anyone else notice Envy Code R just might be a Pragmata Killer?!
I've just finished true-type hinting Inconsolata for Windows ClearType. It now looks alot more legible.
Take a peek: http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4945/incosolatacleartypeey5.png
Mark Gibbins on February 18, 2008 9:03 AMmonofur: monospaced, and curly. http://www.dafont.com/monofur.font
mcalex on February 27, 2008 5:50 AMGlad to see you've warmed up to ClearType, and in turn, Consolas. It's become my favorite font and I've been wavering between different fonts over the past couple years.
Consolas also does a great job being used at different pt sizes (it depends on the screen I'm using). My only gripe with ClearType is that nobody makes pivoted LCD displays where the subpixels are rotated. Well at least not at an affordable level (about $4k for such a screen where as I can just rotate a $250 screen and get good enough quality).
TravisO on March 3, 2008 9:56 AMI use terminus
danielsoft on March 4, 2008 2:05 AMTwo votes for Dina and one for Courier New !!
Only Dina and Courier New are comfortable to read on the LCD monitor at my workplace... In fact, I requested for a CRT monitor at my workplace, but they dont have any :(
I am looking to buy a new monitor for my home PC (I have been using a 15 inch one since last 5 years). From what I have read so far, LCD monitor technology is not yet mature, refresh rates are not yet good enough. I think I will get a 19 inch CRT monitor (though viewable area is less) and wait for 5 more years till LCD screens are able to perform as good as CRT.
I find cleartype much more irritating than Standard setting. It makes text look like it has been manually typewritten using a ribbon having excess ink !!
anonymouse on March 13, 2008 12:42 PMOne might instead say that capitalism has GIVEN us the opportunity to make any screens at all. What superior display technologies have managed economies given to us?
You... did... use "GIVEN" ironically... right?
It's just that, one of the primary side effects of Capitalism is that very little is ever GIVEN to anyone.
Also, responding to a point about Capitalism preventing the production of decent quality screens, by saying that Capitalism gave us the screens we have - as an defense of Capitalism, perhaps lacking.
pgl on April 2, 2008 6:28 AMEr, to actually attempt to contribute something to this thread, I I have to seriously recommend the Liberation font family for very small font sizes:
- a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts/a
A lot of "programmer fonts" are fine until about 8pt, but personally I would like them to go much smaller. Unfortunately there seem to be very few fonts that actually look /nice/ below this (ahah) point.
pgl on April 2, 2008 6:32 AMDavid Mitchell's recommendation of Calibri as a proportional font is quite interesting. Calibri is in fact the first font specified in Coding Horror's own body text style (cf. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/styles-site.css).
Among fixed-width fonts, Lucas De Groot's Consolas is exceptionally good. Amen, amen.
It might interest you to know that APress typesets code in its books with an earlier font from de Groot: TheSansMonoCondensed-Semilight (from his extensive TheSans family). Both Consolas and TheSans have the quality which Jim Lipsey praised in Vera Sans Mono: "reads much like a proportional font".
To my eye, the most obvious difference between Consolas and TheSans is that Consolas has lining figures only. TheSans, on the other hand, is available with four different styles of figures (lining, table, old style, and table hanging).
In addition to its basic elegance, two features of TheSansMonoCondensed deserve special mention. First, condensed width reduces the amount of white space which thin letters must attempt to fill, thereby reducing the inherent awkwardness of monospaced letterforms. Second, hanging figures strongly allude to a form most commonly associated with proportional fonts. TheSansMonoCondensed pushes the limits of a monospaced font which reads like a proportional font.
If legibility is the chief concern, those who hold fast to a preference for proportional fonts might as well go all the way and use a proportional serif. De Groot has a noteworthy font in this category as well: TheSerif. His type foundry's URL is http://www.lucasfonts.com/.
Mexilus Plesva on April 9, 2008 8:52 AMCorrection: Consolas has table figures (fixed with, fixed height, vertically aligned).
Mexilus Plesva on April 9, 2008 9:12 AMDoh! Correction again: Consolas supports both hanging or lining numerals, but this feature requires OpenType support (a href="http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ascender/consolas/familytree.html"http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ascender/consolas/familytree.html/a). I don't suppose there are any OpenType-aware IDE's out there? :)
Mexilus Plesva on April 9, 2008 9:20 AMwell, Monaco on Win32 and Monaco on Mac are two completely different species...
zhou on April 29, 2008 2:38 AMhttp://brianhammond.com/bpMonoScreenshot.png
My favorite is BPMono
Brian H on July 16, 2008 11:14 AMHey, Font of The God isn't even monospace. You can't program with non-monospace font.
Sergej Andrejev on July 16, 2008 12:26 PMMy screen is ~130dpi, and I prefer Andale Mono on the Mac.
Hank on July 17, 2008 5:11 AMLiberation Mono *
Arthur on July 17, 2008 9:07 AMI tried to use Consolas, but the insane MS guys hard-coded the subpixel-ordering into it, so I just cannot use it at all on my BGR screen. Why does everyone in the whole world assumes there's only one type of LCD subpixel ordering? I'm back to Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for now.
Anyway, did you ever try to code XML in one of these fonts? I think that Envy R, for example, is totally useless because the and characters are somehow bad so that the tag boundaries are not easily distinguishable.
Stefan on July 20, 2008 12:00 PMProfont vs Proggy.
Fonts are all subjected to your system settings and IDE. Some fonts work great and some don't depending on your monitor, IDE and brightness. ProFont is a great font for bringing out consistent neat structure (works great all the time), but the individual glyphs are not known to be easy on the eyes compared to Proggy or other cleaner fonts. However, Profont's arrangement of characters is great, consistent and very readable. Proggy collides and isn't consistent in their arrangement.
Anonymous vs himself.
As for Anonymous, it depends. It's a nice artistic font that collides slightly, but is consistently spaced, and in order for it to be reliably good for programming and very readable, you'll need to customise it and hope it works good for our IDE (many times it may not.). But here's an EXCELLENT Anonymous font setup on FlashDevelop (on dark background). Run this WITHOUT ClearType to ensure it's crisp and collisions ain't too bad. Notice the great compactness, sementic readability (due to the serifs) and clarity, something you wouldn't aspect from a font that would have notoriously been considered too decorative and messy.
Pt 6:
http://home.graffiti.net/kidopreneur/anon6pt.JPG
Pt 7:
http://home.graffiti.net/kidopreneur/anon7pt.JPG
Can increase size higher too if you want but these are the 2 best sizes for viewabaility. But it sure beats ProFont in this situation. Sure, it may not be as neat as ProFont, but considering the better compactness, size options, Anonymous well-defined serifs and easier-on-the-eyes glpyhs, Anonymous wins in this aspect.
Glenn on July 21, 2008 10:05 AMAfter going through Courier New, Profont, Consolas, Monaco etc., my favourite programming font ended up being Panic Sans, which comes with Coda, a Mac IDE that I don't use. For developers whose point size of preferance is closer to 12 points than 6, it's perfect. Sample: http://purefiction.net/paste/panicsans.png
none
d on July 24, 2008 8:17 AMOoooh.. that Inconsolata is intriguing... I think it has some similarities to FreeMono which is also very nice.
Patrick on August 8, 2008 9:20 AMDejaVu Sans Mono and Liberation Mono are my choice.
Liberation Mono works perfect at any size.
http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/
Captain Kirk on September 2, 2008 5:18 AMAnyone else have any problems with unprintable ascii characters when using consolas on Visual Studio 2008?
rawMessage.Split('');
The character to split on is the ASCII SOH character (0x01).
When using consolas, the whole line just disappears in the IDE, switch to Courier New, and the line re-appears.
IrritatedCoder on September 4, 2008 8:54 AMI would use FreeMono in windows but it has some strange points on the top and bottom.
Justin Goldberg on September 18, 2008 11:22 AMPanic Sans is a repackaged a href=http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/04/in_love_with_a_font.htmlDejaVu Sans Mono/a.
Justin Goldberg on September 18, 2008 11:40 AMMy Top 5 fonts for programming:
1/ Bitstream Vera Sans Mono
2/ Monaco
3/ Anonymous
4/ Courier New
5/ Consolas
If the license of Consolas is more liberal, it may make no.2 or no.3 on my list :-)
Wow!! It's really amazing!!! Cool man...
Tukang Nggame on May 8, 2009 6:17 AMPrima Sans Mono - a variative to Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, but with modifications. The top 4 fonts for programming are:
1/Prima Sans Mono
2/Segoe Print (a proportional font, but lacks box drawing characters)
3/Monofur
4/Monaco Tweaked (a modified version of Monaco)
You alternate between Prima and Vera Sans Mono. Both have details you like a lot. The half-serif lowercase L in Vera Sans Mono is brilliant; but Prima Sans Mono is not; the dotted zero in Vera Sans Mono is much less objectionable than the standard slashed zero; but Prima Sans Mono is not; the curly quotes in Lucida Console are really, really obviously curled; and on and on. Two votes for Courier New, and one for Fixedsys Excelsior.
Fixedsys Excelsior 3.00: unicode font similar to the ASCII fixedsys. Can be modified. The font file name is FSEX300.ttf. Anonymous has a backslashed zero but Courier New, Prima Sans Mono and other console fonts don't.
Tae Wong on May 18, 2009 6:52 AMAre there any results?
One font wasn't hinted. Can you add hinting to the fonts???
Consolas: looks good with ClearType.
Inconsolata: doesn't look good. needs to hint with a program.
Monaco: looks great with ClearType.
Envy R: looks good with ClearType.
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono: looks good with ClearType. a few characters are mapped to notdef.
Prima Sans Mono: looks good with ClearType. a few characters are mapped to notdef.
Pragmata: looks great with ClearType.
Courier New: looks great with ClearType.
Lucida Typewriter/Lucida Console: looks great with ClearType.
Comic Sans MS: looks great with ClearType. can be used for text.
Andale Mono: looks great with ClearType.
You tried to go to that link, but the administrator had deleted the image and got the message. ImageShack deleted incosolatacleartypeey5.png, because it's unable to access it.
tae on June 7, 2009 3:58 AMYou can find Hell's Programmer here:
http://bebop.tesuji.org/performancedata/index.html
It's not a Trutype font, but a bitmap font for Mac and Windows. I'm not sure the Mac version of it is recognized by Mac OS X anymore, but I'm pretty sure the Windows version still works.
Bitmap fonts are some of the best for programming in my opinion.
Paul Cunningham on July 21, 2009 4:01 AMBrought up in the world of UNIX, I've always been a big fan of the original misc-fixed fonts from The X Window System. While I adore Dina, I never really liked how wide it was. I want more code to fit on the screen. Hence, the 6x13 version is perfect.
Paul Braman on August 12, 2009 6:22 AMOf those listed, I too prefer Consolas.
Although the good old Courier New typeface has been around for ages, it works. For me personally, it's easy on the eyes and it's great that it's the default font in VC8 (in 'orcas', did they change it?)
Aaron on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMI gotta go with the proportional crowd here. I moved away from monospaced a few years ago, and I just can't go back to it now. Currently using Vrinda (either a Vista or Office 2K7 font - not sure which), but when I'm on an XP machine it's Lucida Sans Unicode.
Kirk Clawson on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMEveryone who was even remotely surprised by the legion of Mac users insisting that Monaco looks wonderful on the Mac, raise your hand...
Aaron G on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMI would try Terminus as a font.
Nikron on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMI've realised that having fewer lines of code on the screen can be a good thing. It unconsciously forces you to make your methods shorter.
Anyway. I'm a BitStream Vera Mono guy, it's so well done that sometimes I forget it's a monospaced font, but I like the look of Consolas a lot. Also I saw my workmates using Delphi in Twilight and thought they were crazy. Then I started to notice a bit of eyestrain so I tried it for a while and loved it. I don't know why VS2005 Express doesn't have themes. I tried setting it to white on black, but it is a lot of hard work to change all the settings.
John Ferguson on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMI am starting to wonder if I am just a real odd ball.
I am a huge fan of Arial size 10 on a nice black background.
I do have to say I do like the Consolas font so I might try it out. As long as it looks clean and works with my background then I can always work with it.
Brandon on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMI believe I have discovered the ultimate ProFont rendering.
The sad part is that I can't reproduce it when I have console access to the machine.
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/1276/profontexcellenthintingwv7.png
I installed the ProFontWindows "tweaked" TrueType edition on my Vista machine at home.
Sometime later in the day, I did a Remote Desktop connection to my work machine, where I have ProFontWindows (the .FON version) installed.
Lo and behold, it rendered as in the image above, instead of the expected bitmap form of ProFont, which is odd, since the remote desktop has only the bitmap version (.FON) installed, not TrueType.
It's as if the local version of the font is being rendered (better) by the remote side?
Try as I might, I cannot get it to render exactly like that on my Vista machine though - I tried disabling ClearType, disabling any type of font smoothing whatsoever, but no go. And when I go to work, with physical access to the machine, it doesn't render like that either.
This is what it renders like currently on Vista:
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6774/profontcrappyhintingsn5.png
More compressed and compact, you'll notice. Changing the point sizes doesn't reproduce the desired rendering.
Any suggestions on how to get it to render like the first screen cap?
Argh!
Leon Breedt on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMConsolas is great but it doesn't work over RDP to XP or Win2003 (Clear Type doesn't work). Yes, Vista will display Clear Type, but the performance of Vista via RDP doesn't compare with the snap of XP/Win2003. I do a lot of dev work inside of VPC/VS and typically connect via RDP. Leaning towards monico to fill that need.
Andrew Robinson on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMConsolas certainly does its job pretty darn well.
Went so far as copying the font from Windows 7(home OS) to XP (work OS). But I always resize it to 8.
I've also customized the foreground color of the programming IDE (talking about the Delphi 6/7 one). Can't stand some of their standard colors.
Greetings from Romania,
Lucian
It doesn't look like PL/SQL to me if it's not in Courier. But thanks for the Consolas hint (I'm 3 years late, but nonetheless I just noticed it last week for the first time).
Orbfish on June 9, 2010 2:24 PMThis is an old post - but i like your comparison (though it makes Inconsolata - the trigger of your post - look like an inconsiderable salad of letters).
If you should ever revisit this topic: include an exlamation mark in your snippet! To me, thin exclamation marks are the only compelling argument against if (!illicit) and for the otherwise abnomiable if(illicit==false).
me.yahoo.com/a/mHHNaVY.rPg32F_gPb9hQklgokmhjXs- on June 27, 2010 2:47 AMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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