
Show HN: Iosevka Open Source Programming Typeface - be5invis
http://be5invis.github.io/Iosevka/
======
twic
I will confess to not being a fan. Characters seem too keen to fill their
boxes; i had to bump up the line spacing in my IDE before code was at all
legible, and even then the letters seem elongated and spidery, and despite
being taller than in the default font (Menlo, as this is IntelliJ), are harder
to make out in their details - for example, the strokes of the 'w' are barely
visible.

Reminds me a bit of mode 0 on the BBC Micro:

[http://beebwiki.mdfs.net/MODE_0](http://beebwiki.mdfs.net/MODE_0)

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scribu
This looks interesting. What are those .patel files? [1]

[1]:
[https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka/tree/master/glyphs](https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka/tree/master/glyphs)

~~~
twic
I don't know, but at a guess, it's a language which compiles down to
PostScript. curveTo and lineTo are PostScript functions, and there is a
concept of a current transform.

~~~
be5invis
Nope, it compiles to JavaScript. The compiler is in
[http://github.com/be5invis/PatEL](http://github.com/be5invis/PatEL) and it
uses Patrisika
([http://github.com/be5invis/patrisika](http://github.com/be5invis/patrisika))
as its backend (which converts S-expression-ish AST into Mozilla AST, and
generates JavaScript using Escodegen).

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DanitaBaires
I really like it, but I wish type designers gave more love to the italics
variations, they almost always come out as obliqué or slanted instead of a
true italics.

In my opinion, this typeface could use a bit of inspiration from the elegance
of Consolas ([http://www.lucasfonts.com/case-studies/calibri-
consolas/](http://www.lucasfonts.com/case-studies/calibri-consolas/))

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afandian
Something about the stroke width and shape remind me of the Acorn typeface.
Although it's only a passing similarity, somehow it makes me feel nostalgic.
[http://www.houseofmabel.com/puters/RISCOS3/plain.gif](http://www.houseofmabel.com/puters/RISCOS3/plain.gif)

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JohnDeHope
I especially appreciate that it renders very cleanly at all point sizes in
Windows Cleartype. A lot of fonts look fine at 12pt but then have odd jagged
pixels at other sizes. Two cents: the double quote is a little anemic compared
to the other (nicely sized) punctuation.

~~~
be5invis
Thanks for your suggestion. I will fix it in v0.0.5

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joshuapants
Just threw v0.0.4 into gedit for a trial run. I like it a lot, very readable.
I will echo JohnDeHope's comment that the double quote seems a little too
light to match well with the other characters. I'm eager to see where this
goes!

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cpr
Wow, very reminiscent of the Orator type ball on the IBM Selectric.

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lispython
> compatible to CJK characters

Could someone explain what does this mean?

~~~
audreyt
This means that the latin character width is roughly half of character height,
so "full-width" square CJK ideographs fits exactly as the width of two "half-
width" latin characters.

(Wider monospace fonts would typically require extra character spacing between
CJK ideographs.)

Ref:
[http://www.w3.org/TR/clreq/#basic_features_of_chinese_script](http://www.w3.org/TR/clreq/#basic_features_of_chinese_script)
("squares with the ratio of 1:1, and are seamlessly arranged with one
another.")

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wtbob
Oddly, the sample isn't visible, even with JavaScript turned on.

This is in Firefox on Linux.

~~~
be5invis
I switched zepto.js to local directory and replaced $.getJSON with $.get
(since .charmap may be sent as application/octet-stream). Is it fixed?

~~~
wtbob
It does work now, thanks.

But it's very slow to respond to clicks. Please consider just putting in some
img tags and linking in images…

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Gonzih
Love it! Any chances to see powerline specific characters added to this font?

~~~
be5invis
My current goal is to make it WGL4 compatible. Powerline glyphs will be
included later, though I can not test them since I am using VSCode.

~~~
Gonzih
You can just try to open some shell theme with those glyphs to test them. I
can also provide you just some code file with them in if you want.

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doug1001
really fine work. just installed it and viewing some of my code (scala in
emacs w/ a light theme) i swapped source code pro for this font

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nubela
Question, how is it generated by code?

~~~
be5invis
The outlines of every character are calculated by source code (the .patel
files, compiles to JavaScript).

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octatoan
This is so Pragmata Pro. :)

Love the ks especially.

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anon3_
Well done, thank you for this!

Sometimes all it takes it a new font to jog your creativity a bit.

What was your inspiration for this ?

~~~
be5invis
Mainly Pragmata Pro, and I brought some ideas form DIN and M+ 1m series. All
glyphs are exactly 0.5em wide so they can be compatible with 中日韩文字 (CJK
characters, where every character are excatly 1em wide).

~~~
mahmoudimus
Please excuse my ignorance, and please correct me so I may learn, as I have no
idea about fonts except that I simply them in my editors :)

The inspiration of M+ 1m + Pragmata Pro is very interesting and make for a
powerful font.

Do you anticipate further font development, driven by the same code-generated
workflow, attempting to tackle modernization of something like the venerable
Misc Fixed 13pt, which needs an update for modern screens and/or resolutions?

Then, there's the Apple Menlo/Monaco, Ubuntu Mono and derivatives, as well as
Consolas and its derivatives which tend to focus on wider glyphs , as opposed
to the narrowness and (longer?) line-heights of similar fonts to M+ 1m /
Pragmata Pro? It would be interesting to see if newer fonts can evolve from
this approach.

Thanks for a great project!

~~~
be5invis
My future work will be focused on spatial balance and glyph coverage. (I'd
want to coverage ALL UNICODE POINTS of Latin/Greek/Cyrillic/IPA, thanks to the
building script generating them will be much easier than using a conventional
font editor: Just add a mark glyph and all combining glyphs using it will be
automatically generated.)

Maybe I can make a library or toolchain after this font is almost completed,
as a modernized METAFONT, which produces Opentype directly from your
generation source code. And well, in that toolchain, i will not use PatEL
since this language has not been documented yet.

~~~
mahmoudimus
That sounds like it would be a grand idea! Will be watching closely to see how
it evolves. Thanks again.

