Among other things, I am a typography nerd. (Helvetica is one of my favorite documentaries.) I’ve even purchased a coding font called Dank Mono.
I just discovered this very well thought out font called Input.
It has three families, monospaced, sans serif, and serif. In addition, you can change parameters to customize it to your liking. For example, to be able to easily see the difference in 1Il or O0, change the shape of ‘a’ and ‘g’, etc.
The designer also makes an interesting case for using proportional fonts for editing code.
E.g. notice the difference in the ‘I’ and ‘0’ in these screen shots:
And if one needs glyphs, like for power lines, I recently discovered Nerd Fonts. There are fonts such as Jet Brains, Fira Code, etc. with added glyphs for power lines, icons, etc.
IBM Plex Mono is a font that works both for programming and casual display. It was the basis for the iA Writer app’s famous-in-some-circles font (capital Q and lowercase g being the most obvious differences). And it has a variety of pleasing lighter weight fonts, if that appeals to you. It is widely available for download and is free to use.
I use JetBrains Mono as well. I also like Iosevka, Recursive Mono Duotone, and Hack. I tried Input and I couldn’t get used to it, but there’s a lot I like about it.
I’ll have to check that out! (I can’t see myself ever using proportional fonts for code though: I think I use “expected widths of things” way too much as an implicit/semi-subconscious method of scanning for possible syntax errors.
Yeah, and it’s interesting enough that I may give it a try. It can make some typos easier to spot, but also hide others. It’ll be a matter of how easily the semi-subconscious syntax checker in my brain can adapt after decades of monospaced fonts.
