[9fans] Favorite variable width fonts?

[James A. Robinson]

Hi folks,

I just recently started using Acme. Years ago I was a heavy user
of sam and wily, but when I moved from Linux to a Mac OS X machine
I found the X11 based programs were a bit too fiddly on the mac.

Plan9Port changes all that of course, and for years now I've been
wanting to try moving over to acme. So far I'm really liking it,
but I don't like the default fonts and am trying others.

I'm currently looking at the available variable width fonts under
the Mac, and I'm wondering if you folks have variable width fonts
you particularly like using when programming?

I've been trying out LaoSangamMN and I may switch to Skia-Regular
next. As weird as it might sound, right now I am also finding
myself partial to ComicSansMS. :-)

Ideally the font would have glyphs that are easy to read for the
symbols used in a typical C or Go program when using a smaller font
(the long label problem I wrote about earlier is manageable with a
smaller font). It's a bonus if the font has good unicode coverage!

Jim

[James A. Robinson]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:42 AM, James A. Robinson <

Post by James A. Robinson
Ideally the font would have glyphs that are easy to read for the
symbols used in a typical C or Go program when using a smaller font
(the long label problem I wrote about earlier is manageable with a
smaller font). It's a bonus if the font has good unicode coverage!

One font I just came across that looks promising is sixpack:

http://www.chastney.com/~philip/sixpack/outline.html

Jim

[Lee Fallat]

Hey James,

You are brave to bring up such a subject.

Of the zillion fonts I have tried, only Droid Sans looks the best at
smaller text sizes. Of course there are bitmap fonts which are readable at
8x8 but I figured you'd want something a little more scalable and useable
across other systems. Lucida Sans Unicode (unicode.7.font) looks really
nice in acme too.

Good luck (no really :),

Lee


On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 4:39 PM, James A. Robinson <

Post by James A. Robinson
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:42 AM, James A. Robinson <

Post by James A. Robinson
Ideally the font would have glyphs that are easy to read for the
symbols used in a typical C or Go program when using a smaller font
(the long label problem I wrote about earlier is manageable with a
smaller font). It's a bonus if the font has good unicode coverage!

http://www.chastney.com/~philip/sixpack/outline.html
Jim

[Costin Chirvasuta]

I really like /lib/font/bit/vga/vga.font (not sure if it's in official
plan9, found it in 9front last time).

Costin

Post by Lee Fallat
Hey James,
You are brave to bring up such a subject.
Of the zillion fonts I have tried, only Droid Sans looks the best at smaller
text sizes. Of course there are bitmap fonts which are readable at 8x8 but I
figured you'd want something a little more scalable and useable across other
systems. Lucida Sans Unicode (unicode.7.font) looks really nice in acme too.
Good luck (no really :),
Lee
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 4:39 PM, James A. Robinson

Post by James A. Robinson
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:42 AM, James A. Robinson

Post by James A. Robinson
Ideally the font would have glyphs that are easy to read for the
symbols used in a typical C or Go program when using a smaller font
(the long label problem I wrote about earlier is manageable with a
smaller font). It's a bonus if the font has good unicode coverage!

http://www.chastney.com/~philip/sixpack/outline.html
Jim

[James A. Robinson]

Post by Costin Chirvasuta
I really like /lib/font/bit/vga/vga.font (not sure if it's in official
plan9, found it in 9front last time).

Yep, still there:

https://code.google.com/p/plan9front/source/browse/lib/font/bit/?r=78bdd54efdff480240da4dc6a5dd29d468502db7

Thank you for the pointer.

Jim

[James A. Robinson]

... Droid Sans looks the best at smaller text sizes ...

Thanks, I'm checking out the google android fonts using the TTF
fonts available from

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/foundry/google-android

Jim