Coding/terminal fonts: what's your fave?

[Dan Q]

Some people just use the default fonts their software gives them in their terminal or code editor; some people are really picky that they use a particular font (I met somebody once who'd configured his editor to use a variable-width handwriting font for code comments only and while I admired the artistry I couldn't stand to look at it!).

Personally, I configure both my command-line terminal and my text editors with Fantasque Sans Mono:

Here's why I love it:

• It's monospaced, but playful! I have to code in monospaced (all characters the same width) fonts or it throws off my indentation, but Fantasque achieves this while using playful rounded letter shapes
• It crosses the 0 - an absolute must for me; I hate when a coding font's "number zeros" look like it's "letter ohs"
• It's OpenType ligatures are sick - when I type >=, it becomes ≥, but it's designed in such a way that the character width remains "proper" (i.e. it's two-characters wide); this is hard to explain but promise me that it looks great - the same's true for lots of other multi-character symbols too, like ==, ===, =>, ->, != (becomes ≠ !), <!-- and so many more.

So what about you? Do you have a favourite terminal or code font? Do you use different ones for both? Or do you just use what comes as standard?

[nipchip]

Oh my gosh terminal and code editor customisation!!

Inconsolata is my coding font of choice, both on my work and home computers. Been happily coding with it for years. I haven't thought too much why I like it, but it's monospaced and super readable.

On top of that, I'm currently on the Catppuccin (Mocha) colour palette.

As a combo, I think it's quite easy on the eyes for long coding sessions.

[Watanabe_1994]

I really don't touch external IDE's from my website hosting service's internal one unless I REALLY REALLY have to these days. HL1 scripting is pretty minimal and only needs a text editor for client side and is mostly handled through triggers on HAMMER or J.A.C.K like m_iszPlay, m_iszIdle, scripted_sentence ex. ex. you get the point. IF I do need an external ill just use the defaults since I will not be working on it for long.



For system terminal (xterm, konsole) its pritty basic. Black background, green directory pointing (user@computer:~/whatever$) and white text.

[candycanearter07]

Easily Monocraft! It's nostalgic for me (i used to play minecraft a lot) and it also scales really well for being a pixel font. It also supports programming liguratures, which is super super cool!



My second favorite is Fairfax, since it looks really nice and clean, the problem is it either becomes very blurry or goes to the fallback font when in different sizes, but its still good for fixed-size stuff like the terminal

[lakes]

I usually use Cool Retro Term with the default font, same with my code editor, Kate. But for the XFCE Terminal, I actually use Amiga Bold.

[noahie]

Monospace everything. In my terminal, my text editor, my browser—my whole life is in monospace. Funny enough, I only discovered the font in recent years and didn't find out about it as a defacto coding font until way after I installed my friendly neighborhood GNU/Linux distribution and made a website. I've always been a fan of those typewriter-looking fonts like Courier and Source Code Pro or whatever because I like manuscripts and that kind of thing (maybe one day, Disney!). But yeah, once I saw the ubiquity of monospace fonts, that's when I knew it was going to be the only font I want to read anything in anymore. I don't even code like that, so I don't really need to use the ligatures or anything. But it's just such a beautiful font; it makes me feel like I'm in a cyberpunk noir movie that's 1940 and 2077 at the same time.

[cyanidesunrise]

recently switched to MxPlus AST PremiumExec. most of the time it's updated versions of ancient IBM VGA fonts (mostly from a pack found on int10h). the setup in general is kind of an unholy twist on windows 98 that phases into a different flavor every couple weeks.

before landing on int10h fonts, i tried several other packs like Levi, Ari-W9500 and BigBlue TerminalPlus, but they all missed the mark by not really being pixel precise in any conditions. looked okay if you turned off font antialiasing, but that made other things unreadable.

back in my tech bro (ish) era i set everything to fira code. before that i put zero effort into styling at all (whatever the hell vscode had by default), and after that it was the current road into the reeds, no in-between somehow.

[akhenaton]

Easily Monocraft! It's nostalgic for me (i used to play minecraft a lot)

Wow Monocraft is super cute!! I must find a fun project to use this one in haha.


Since I design typefaces, I just use my own programming font Lotion!

Here it is in light & dark themes


Some features

• true italics!!
• variable formats available!
• 4 weights
• common ligatures! (contributed by another programmer)

I'm definitely in the camp of people who are extremely picky about every aspect of their terminal since I spend like half my life in it. I guess to the point where I really felt the need to design my programming font as well...

Feel free to download it and introduce it to your terminal 

[candycanearter07]

Wow Monocraft is super cute!! I must find a fun project to use this one in haha.


Since I design typefaces, I just use my own programming font Lotion!

Monocraft is insanely clean and I absolutely love it. It's set as the monospace font for my web browser as well :P
Theres also Miracraft (linked on the monocraft page) if you don't like pixels (i love pixels)


That font also looks pretty cool, it sorta reminds me of Segoe UI (the windows font) but with more personality. I won't use it because its not pixels but ye :D

[Dan Q]

Since I design typefaces, I just use my own programming font Lotion!

That's a wonderful and clear face. Love it!

I've twice in my life tried to get a handle on designing fonts but I definitely don't have a knack for it. I've a huge amount of respect for anybody who can do it: it requires a certain level of attention to detail that goes beyond what I'm capable of!

[MediocreMetastasis]

I'll probably never switch from consolas since it's pretty reliable.

0 and O are displayed differently.
It's monospaced.
1 and I are different.
I and l are different.

Plus it supports way more characters then most fonts since it's supported by Microsoft.

It's the perfect coding font. Other fonts look off or too modern for me

[Dan Q]

I and l are different.

I love that you've chosen to say this... using a font in which they're not!

[xwindows]

My current favorite is Hermit, especially its Light variant; I'm using it in both text editor and graphical terminal. It is monospaced (of course), hinted reasonably at many sizes (important, since I disable font antialiasing on my GNU/Linux system), its `0` vs. `O` and `l` vs. `I` vs. `|` vs. `1` are all distinct (1), and it also gives an old-school teleprinter feel (which I like).

I said "current", as it is just the latest one of my favorites through time. My older favorites are as follows, recent first:

• Liberation Mono
• Dina (bitmap)
• Terminus (bitmap)
• Anonymous (now freely-licensed as Anonymous Pro)
• DejaVu Sans Mono (nee Bitstream Vera Sans Mono)
• LucidaTypewriter (bitmap)
• Lucida Console (proprietary)
• Courier New (proprietary)

Note that I omitted Consolas (proprietary) from the list, because while I think it's a reasonable font for writing computer programs, I have no real experience using it in terminal or in text editor, much less in non-antialiased environment I currently have.


(1) Number zero vs. uppercase-oh; and lowercase-ell vs. uppercase-eye vs. pipe vs. number one.

[lm8]

I usually like to work with DejaVu.  It offers a nice monospaced font.  Some of my programming editors only work with monospaced fonts, so I started searching for monospaced fonts I could use.  I put together a list of them here: https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/3889.html