Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[Nate Bargmann]

Everything is a personal preference and thanks for bringing this font to
my attention, Cindy.  There are so many fonts available that it is time
consuming to find just the right one.  I've been using Consolas for a
long enough time that I could tell immediately that I prefer it over the
Anonymous Pro.  It was fun to check and I'll keep it installed.  One
never knows...

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[Joe Pfeiffer]

David Wright  writes:

> Quoting Joe Pfeiffer (pfeif...@cs.nmsu.edu):

>> Looks interesting -- I've been using Terminus for quite a while -- it's
>> another fixed-width programmer-friendly font, Comparing it with
>> Anonymous Pro, it seems a bit narrows and doesn't seem to have as much
 ^^^narrower
>> variation in apparent weight (Anonymous Pro's W is so much darker than
>> the other characters on a line I'm looking at that it looks like it's in
>> Bold!).
>
> So you've installed it? Are you using it in a VC or an xterm?
>
> I'm not sure how you would use it: the package contains four TTF files
> and that's it.

I appear to have installed at some point; I tend to just install the
fonts that come up in the repository without thinking about it.

I tried it in an xterm (more specifically, xfce4-terminal).  I just
went to the preference's editor, saw that it was one of the font
options, and switched to it.  All the text in all my terminal windows
was suddenly in Anonymous Pro.

Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[David Wright]

Quoting Joe Pfeiffer (pfeif...@cs.nmsu.edu):
> David Wright  writes:
> 
> > Quoting Joe Pfeiffer (pfeif...@cs.nmsu.edu):
> 
> >> Looks interesting -- I've been using Terminus for quite a while -- it's
> >> another fixed-width programmer-friendly font, Comparing it with
> >> Anonymous Pro, it seems a bit narrows and doesn't seem to have as much
>  ^^^narrower
> >> variation in apparent weight (Anonymous Pro's W is so much darker than
> >> the other characters on a line I'm looking at that it looks like it's in
> >> Bold!).
> >
> > So you've installed it? Are you using it in a VC or an xterm?
> >
> > I'm not sure how you would use it: the package contains four TTF files
> > and that's it.
> 
> I appear to have installed at some point; I tend to just install the
> fonts that come up in the repository without thinking about it.
> 
> I tried it in an xterm (more specifically, xfce4-terminal).  I just
> went to the preference's editor, saw that it was one of the font
> options, and switched to it.  All the text in all my terminal windows
> was suddenly in Anonymous Pro.

Well, it's defeated me. Doing anything with fonts is always
frustrating. For years I used Computer Modern, then Palatino because,
with respect, it looked less like a Knuth textbook. IIRC it was
texlive which meant I had to find out that Palatino is now "TeX Gyre
Pagella", whatever that means.

I use   dpkg-reconfigure console-setup   to set a console font. You
don't get much choice. I suppose it's just what's in
/usr/share/consolefonts/ though I never get offered unifont even
though I have /usr/share/consolefonts/Unifont-APL8x16.psf.gz from
package psf-unifont which is PSF (console) version of GNU Unifont
with APL support.

So I stick to Terminus on the console. I'll make the observation that
using   dpkg-reconfigure console-setupon a real VC while X is
running is a no-no. You really have to exit X altogether.

Moving on to X, well on the whole I just install a load of fonts on
the basis that applications will find and use them. But how you find
out what a font is, and then change it, that's beyond me.

In Xterm, I'm fairly happy just so long as I can find a string like
-jmk-Neep-Medium-R-Normal--20-180-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1 or 8x13
associated with the font. But I can't try Anonymous Pro because
xlsfonts shows no such string.

But take, for example, the font that iceweasel uses to display the
address of a link when you hover over it. It's very small and spindly,
and makes the characters "rn" look exactly like "m". I often have to
fire up xzoom to take a closer look.

Anyway, I looked at https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts after "installing"
ttf-anonymous-pro. I can see the four files with fc-list, and I ran
fc-cache -fv   for luck.

I ran
$ dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
and
$ dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
[sic] but had to do so as root, obviously. I haven't a clue what
the prompts are talking about.

I find sections like:

Font Formats
ttf, otf, bdf, pfb, fnt, woff

totally unenlightening.

The https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts/FAQ appears to be a historical
document.

https://wiki.debian.org/TrueType says everything will just happen
automatically without actually saying *what* happens automatically.

So I'd be very interested to know, having installed ttf-anonymous-pro,
how to actually use it.

Sorry to ramble but, because I can't grasp any pattern to linux fonts,
I can't organise my thoughts/findings/intentions in any logical order.
The mess is contagious.

Cheers,
David.

Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[Reco]

 Hi.

On Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:33:42 -0400
Cindy-Sue Causey  wrote:

> One more then I hear my bird feeders calling. Couple days ago I was
> trying to find a pirate friendly font via an "apt-cache search"
> inquiry. No pirates (that weren't part of a *2GB* package, yar!),
> but stumbled on a font called "Anonymous Pro" that is billed as a
> "fixed width sans serif font designed for coders".
> 
> Further description is: "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four
> fixed-width fonts designed  especially with coding in mind. Characters
> that could be mistaken for  one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have
> distinct shapes to make them  easier to tell apart in the context of
> source code."
> 
> Since I had just like the day before installed "devscripts", it
> sounded like a potential win worth pursuing. It looks very similar to
> Monospace, but my brain still keeps actively noticing that there is
> definitely a user-friendly difference..

A small nitpick. Very small. There's no font called "Monospace", it's
an alias to some other font. Which, I presume, actually called DejaVu
Sans Mono. A quick check with 'fc-match Monospace' should clear all
possible uncertainties.


> Sharing because it might just help someone else who spends a lot of
> time using terminals. As I write that, for some reason it comes to
> mind that it may be standard with large installs. If not, the package
> name again is ttf-anonymous-pro.

I'm not trying to argue about tastes here, but if asked about the best
*terminal* font - I always suggest Terminus (which is xfonts-terminus).
While it lacks CJK glyphs and this modern Unicode emoji jumbo - it gets
the job done for me since '06.

Reco

Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Cindy-Sue Causey  writes:

> One more then I hear my bird feeders calling. Couple days ago I was
> trying to find a pirate friendly font via an "apt-cache search"
> inquiry. No pirates (that weren't part of a *2GB* package, yar!),
> but stumbled on a font called "Anonymous Pro" that is billed as a
> "fixed width sans serif font designed for coders".
>
> Further description is: "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four
> fixed-width fonts designed  especially with coding in mind. Characters
> that could be mistaken for  one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have
> distinct shapes to make them  easier to tell apart in the context of
> source code."
>
> Since I had just like the day before installed "devscripts", it
> sounded like a potential win worth pursuing. It looks very similar to
> Monospace, but my brain still keeps actively noticing that there is
> definitely a user-friendly difference..
>
> Sharing because it might just help someone else who spends a lot of
> time using terminals. As I write that, for some reason it comes to
> mind that it may be standard with large installs. If not, the package
> name again is ttf-anonymous-pro.

Looks interesting -- I've been using Terminus for quite a while -- it's
another fixed-width programmer-friendly font, Comparing it with
Anonymous Pro, it seems a bit narrows and doesn't seem to have as much
variation in apparent weight (Anonymous Pro's W is so much darker than
the other characters on a line I'm looking at that it looks like it's in
Bold!).

Re: Coder friendly font

[Lisi Reisz]

On Monday 21 September 2015 18:16:59 Curt wrote:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_%28typeface%29
>
> "Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after
> its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif
> typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at
> small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, font designer Steve
> Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in
> pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann
> named it as "the best general typeface ever"."

Sadly, it appears not to be available for Debian, or rather, in the Debian 
Wheezy repositories.

I use large point Bitstream Vera Sans.  Of all the ones I have tried, I have 
found it the easiest and the least tiring, but I cannot justify this over 
other similar fonts.  I just subjectively find it so.

Lisi

Re: Coder friendly font

[Joe Pfeiffer]

rlhar...@oplink.net writes:

> On Mon, September 21, 2015 11:33 am, Cindy-Sue Causey wrote:
>> a font called "Anonymous Pro" that is billed as a "fixed width sans serif
>> font designed for coders".
>> Further description is: "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four
>> fixed-width fonts designed  especially with coding in mind. Characters
>> that
>> could be mistaken for  one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have distinct
>> shapes to make them  easier to tell apart in the context of source code."
>
> Regarding disambiguity, Courier is one of the best fonts; likewise Times
> Roman.  The only problem with Times Roman with respect to coding is that
> it is not fixed-width.

And courier is downright ugly.

> Sans-serif is not a desirable attribute, except for certain applications
> such as newspaper headlines.  Studies have shown that serif fonts are more
> readable and less fatiguing, because the serifs of a letter or numeral
> convey much information.

It may be billed as sans serif, but there are a number of characters in
the font that do indeed have serifs.

> But Americans crave novelty, so there always is a market for the
> "different" when it is claimed to be "new" and "improved".

Re: Coder friendly font

[rlharris]

On Mon, September 21, 2015 11:33 am, Cindy-Sue Causey wrote:
> a font called "Anonymous Pro" that is billed as a "fixed width sans serif
> font designed for coders".
> Further description is: "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four
> fixed-width fonts designed  especially with coding in mind. Characters
> that
> could be mistaken for  one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have distinct
> shapes to make them  easier to tell apart in the context of source code."

Regarding disambiguity, Courier is one of the best fonts; likewise Times
Roman.  The only problem with Times Roman with respect to coding is that
it is not fixed-width.

Sans-serif is not a desirable attribute, except for certain applications
such as newspaper headlines.  Studies have shown that serif fonts are more
readable and less fatiguing, because the serifs of a letter or numeral
convey much information.

But Americans crave novelty, so there always is a market for the
"different" when it is claimed to be "new" and "improved".

RLH

Re: Coder friendly font

[Curt]

On 2015-09-21, rlhar...@oplink.net  wrote:
>
> Sans-serif is not a desirable attribute, except for certain applications
> such as newspaper headlines.  Studies have shown that serif fonts are more
> readable and less fatiguing, because the serifs of a letter or numeral
> convey much information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_%28typeface%29

"Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after
its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif
typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at
small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, font designer Steve
Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in
pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann
named it as "the best general typeface ever"."

> But Americans crave novelty, so there always is a market for the
> "different" when it is claimed to be "new" and "improved".

Oh jesus, kept this nationalistic bullshit out of the group, would ya
fella?

Re: Coder friendly font

[Lisi Reisz]

On Monday 21 September 2015 17:49:10 rlhar...@oplink.net wrote:
> Regarding disambiguity, Courier is one of the best fonts; likewise Times
> Roman.  The only problem with Times Roman with respect to coding is that
> it is not fixed-width.
>
> Sans-serif is not a desirable attribute, except for certain applications
> such as newspaper headlines.  Studies have shown that serif fonts are more
> readable and less fatiguing,

Which studies??  I strongly disagree.

> because the serifs of a letter or numeral 
> convey much information.

Which is extraneous to most needs so very tiring.

Lisi

Re: Coder friendly font

[Tyler D]

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 12:57 PM, Lisi Reisz  wrote:

> On Monday 21 September 2015 17:49:10 rlhar...@oplink.net wrote:
> > Regarding disambiguity, Courier is one of the best fonts; likewise Times
> > Roman.  The only problem with Times Roman with respect to coding is that
> > it is not fixed-width.
> >
> > Sans-serif is not a desirable attribute, except for certain applications
> > such as newspaper headlines.  Studies have shown that serif fonts are
> more
> > readable and less fatiguing,
>
> Which studies??  I strongly disagree.
>
> > because the serifs of a letter or numeral
> > convey much information.
>
> Which is extraneous to most needs so very tiring.
>
> Lisi
>
>
I enjoy Terminus

Re: Coder friendly font Anonymous Pro (ttf-anonymous-pro)

[David Wright]

Quoting Joe Pfeiffer (pfeif...@cs.nmsu.edu):
> Cindy-Sue Causey  writes:
> 
> > One more then I hear my bird feeders calling. Couple days ago I was
> > trying to find a pirate friendly font via an "apt-cache search"
> > inquiry. No pirates (that weren't part of a *2GB* package, yar!),
> > but stumbled on a font called "Anonymous Pro" that is billed as a
> > "fixed width sans serif font designed for coders".
> >
> > Further description is: "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four
> > fixed-width fonts designed  especially with coding in mind. Characters
> > that could be mistaken for  one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have
> > distinct shapes to make them  easier to tell apart in the context of
> > source code."
> >
> > Since I had just like the day before installed "devscripts", it
> > sounded like a potential win worth pursuing. It looks very similar to
> > Monospace, but my brain still keeps actively noticing that there is
> > definitely a user-friendly difference..
> >
> > Sharing because it might just help someone else who spends a lot of
> > time using terminals. As I write that, for some reason it comes to
> > mind that it may be standard with large installs. If not, the package
> > name again is ttf-anonymous-pro.
> 
> Looks interesting -- I've been using Terminus for quite a while -- it's
> another fixed-width programmer-friendly font, Comparing it with
> Anonymous Pro, it seems a bit narrows and doesn't seem to have as much
> variation in apparent weight (Anonymous Pro's W is so much darker than
> the other characters on a line I'm looking at that it looks like it's in
> Bold!).

So you've installed it? Are you using it in a VC or an xterm?

I'm not sure how you would use it: the package contains four TTF files
and that's it.

Cheers,
David.

Re: Coder friendly font

[Felix Miata]

Martin Read composed on 2015-09-21 19:33 (UTC+0100):

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-face-samplesM.html and
>> http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-linuxmono.html provide ways to
>> compare some common monospace fonts.

> Only if you have the fonts already installed, which isn't helpful if 
> you're trying to decide which fonts *to* install.

True, but they were designed for comparing among within identical context,
and for choosing which to use or not, not which to install.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Coder friendly font

[Felix Miata]

Joe Pfeiffer composed on 2015-09-21 11:38 (UTC-0600):

> rlhar...@oplink.net writes:

>> Regarding disambiguity, Courier is one of the best fonts; likewise Times
>> Roman.  The only problem with Times Roman with respect to coding is that
>> it is not fixed-width.

> And courier is downright ugly.

Well put, and one of the earliest reasons for disliking Windows.

http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-face-samplesM.html and
http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-linuxmono.html provide ways to
compare some common monospace fonts.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Coder friendly font

[Christian Seiler]

On 09/21/2015 07:55 PM, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Monday 21 September 2015 18:16:59 Curt wrote:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_%28typeface%29
>>
>> "Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after
>> its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif
>> typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at
>> small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, font designer Steve
>> Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in
>> pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann
>> named it as "the best general typeface ever"."
> 
> Sadly, it appears not to be available for Debian, or rather, in the Debian 
> Wheezy repositories.

Frutiger is not free: neither free-as-in-beer nor free-as-in-speach.
If you want to use it you have to pay for it. It may come bundled
with some commercial proprietary software packages.

> I use large point Bitstream Vera Sans.  Of all the ones I have tried, I have 
> found it the easiest and the least tiring, but I cannot justify this over 
> other similar fonts.  I just subjectively find it so.

Btw. there's also "Hack" that was recently announced, partially based
on Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. They have an own font license[1] for it,
where I'm not completely sure whether it's free-as-in-speach (clause
1 might be problematic in that regard), but its development model is
open and they claim to be "open source" and "libre" - and you can
definitely use it freely for your own documents.

See:
https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

(Haven't tried using it myself yet, but it fits the topic of this
thread.)

Christian

[1] https://github.com/chrissimpkins/Hack/blob/master/LICENSE.md



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Coder friendly font

[Curt]

On 2015-09-21, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> On Monday 21 September 2015 18:16:59 Curt wrote:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_%28typeface%29
>>
>> "Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after
>> its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif
>> typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at
>> small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, font designer Steve
>> Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in
>> pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann
>> named it as "the best general typeface ever"."
>
> Sadly, it appears not to be available for Debian, or rather, in the Debian 
> Wheezy repositories.

It's copyrighted.  You'd have to buy it (from Adobe, e.g.), I suppose,
if you wish to use it.

Still, one of the best, if not the best, font in the world for
legibility, used everywhere from the Charles de Gaulle airport in France
to the German Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to Amtrak, is a
sans-serif font, contrary to what that other guy (who I think owns
Volkswagen stock) implied.

> I use large point Bitstream Vera Sans.  Of all the ones I have tried, I have 
> found it the easiest and the least tiring, but I cannot justify this over 
> other similar fonts.  I just subjectively find it so.

Whatever works for you is fine.

> Lisi
>
>


-- 

Re: Coder friendly font

[David Wright]

Quoting Curt (cu...@free.fr):
> On 2015-09-21, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> > On Monday 21 September 2015 18:16:59 Curt wrote:
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_%28typeface%29
> >>
> >> "Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after
> >> its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif
> >> typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at
> >> small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, font designer Steve
> >> Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in
> >> pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann
> >> named it as "the best general typeface ever"."
> >
> > Sadly, it appears not to be available for Debian, or rather, in the Debian 
> > Wheezy repositories.
> 
> It's copyrighted.  You'd have to buy it (from Adobe, e.g.), I suppose,
> if you wish to use it.
> 
> Still, one of the best, if not the best, font in the world for
> legibility, used everywhere from the Charles de Gaulle airport in France
> to the German Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to Amtrak, is a
> sans-serif font, contrary to what that other guy (who I think owns
> Volkswagen stock) implied.

It's a very pleasing font for display, judging by the wiki page.
I hadn't realised the NHS use it, and it would be interesting to
compare it with the font that was designed IIRC in the 50/60s for
UK Motorway signage (well, it started there, when they realised that
Motorway drivers wouldn't be able to read fingerposts or the
"bubbly"-reflective block capital signs of my childhood).
It's also very legible in running text (deliberately printed a little
large) in this Cancer Screening Programme booklet.

However, as a coding-friendly font, I don't rate it. Unambiguity is
essential here, as it legibility in fixed-spacing.

Currently I find neep as legible as anything on screen. I was
disappointed with the efont somebody suggested a while back.
Neep is well-endowed wrt unicode glyphs, which helps.

Also, bear in mind that I've never (knowingly) seen neep, efont,
terminus etc rendered in ink as opposed to light. So 99.9% of the
usages enumerated on the wiki page are irrelevant to this purpose
(unless NHS staff have it as their screen font, which I doubt).

Cheers,
David.

Re: Coder friendly font

[Martin Read]

On 21/09/15 19:18, Felix Miata wrote:

http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-face-samplesM.html and
http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-linuxmono.html provide ways to
compare some common monospace fonts.


Only if you have the fonts already installed, which isn't helpful if 
you're trying to decide which fonts *to* install.