53 responses to “Envy Code R preview #6 released with Visual Studio italics”

1. 1 Steve Eyre Aug 19th, 2007 at 20:08

   Wow, this version looks really good. This is (and has been for a while) my favourite font to code in - absolutely superb! Thank you :)

2. 2 Adrian Ritchie Aug 19th, 2007 at 22:08

   Having used EnvyCode since its beginning, I have to say that this is the best yet. The spacing issues of the early versions seem to be sorted.

   I also like the fact you've created a Visual Studio version for italic support... now, hows about fixing all the other annoyances Visual Studio? ;)

3. 3 Stu Aug 20th, 2007 at 02:08

   Cheers for the Capital 'R' change, it looks a lot better than before.

   Under Java, the slash through the zero is rendered very heavily, so too 'NMWZ', lowercase is perfectly fine.

   see image for a screenshot

   As you have said before, Java has a bastardised font renderer so it may never look as awesome as on the mac/win native renderer.

4. 4 Andrew Donaldson Aug 20th, 2007 at 11:08

   Hey Damien,

   I'm relatively new to Mac's so this may well be user error, but using PR6 on textmate I get strange problems.

   Give me a shout if you need more information about my setup to figure out whats happening ;)

5. 5 Damien Guard Aug 20th, 2007 at 11:08

   That's almost certainly a problem with the font itself - I'll take a look tonight. Probably one of the Mac-specific metrics gone askew although I tested it with Terminal before release.

   [)amien

6. 6 Michael Sheets Aug 20th, 2007 at 21:08

   To echo Andrews comment and provide more info; it only happens at sizes 12 and 13. Works otherwise.

7. 7 Aristotle Pagaltzis Aug 21st, 2007 at 23:08

   Very nice! I’m not sure I’d want this font as my default because it’s a bit blocky. Of course that’s a matter of taste. But it will certainly be a nice change of pace when I need a break from Vera Sans Mono and Consolas.

   I have an issue in Windows though: the font chooser dialog won’t let me select a non-bold variant. The “standard” weight is the bold version and the only other available weight is “bold italic”.

   I also have a request: could you make the curly quotes more pronouncedly curly? (This is one aspect I *really* like about Consolas.) Also, it would be very nice if you could add a few box drawing characters so the font would be useful for PuTTY, say. (This is one aspect I *really* dislike about Consolas.)

8. 8 Tomas Restrepo Aug 29th, 2007 at 17:08

   Damien,

   First time I tried Envy Code R, and it's looking mighty fine! Love the VS italicss hack :)
   My only complain would be that 14pt is too small, while 15pt is huge :)

9. 9 Gleb Dolgich Sep 4th, 2007 at 20:09

   This font is absolutely awesome. The VS italics hack is brilliant! Envy Code R is my favourite coding font from now on, beating Consolas and Inconsolata. Thank you, and keep up the great work!

10. 10 Christoph Haunschmidt Sep 7th, 2007 at 23:09

    I recently discovered Envy Code R and it easily replaced Dina as my favourite coding font.
    It's very clear, yet still pleasing to the eye. Great work!

    BTW I'd also really appreciate added block-characters, so I could use it in PuTTY as well...

11. 11 ReadOnly Sep 10th, 2007 at 15:09

    I would like to suggest a tweak to the comma. It is difficult to see the difference in
    smaller point sizes between a comma and a period, and between a colon and a semi-colon.

12. 12 Jay Levitt Sep 11th, 2007 at 23:09

    This looks really pretty in Windows! Unfortunately, Windows
    Java 6 w/Swing gets very, very confused by something:

    http://www.jay.fm/files/envycoder.png

13. 13 Eddy Young Sep 14th, 2007 at 14:09

    Damien,

    The font looks great in the editor, but unfortunately in some Java apps (NetBeans auto-complete drop-down list) the fonts are all messed up (as Jay wrote).

    Is there any interim fix that we could try?

    Thanks,

    Eddy

14. 14 Damien Guard Sep 18th, 2007 at 07:09

    I'm really not sure what is causing it. I will have to install NetBeans or JEdit and try experimenting. At a guess I'd say it could be something off with one of the metrics but they are auto-calculated by the design software.

    [)amien

15. 15 Eddy Young Sep 19th, 2007 at 12:09

    For what it's worth, the issue appear only at sizes 13 and below.

    -- Eddy

16. 16 robert Oct 5th, 2007 at 12:10

    At some point, I don't recall seeing it yet, would you consider the full monty lower case g ? The Envy version isn't bad as some, but still not fully differentiable from q and o.

    thanks

17. 17 Damien Guard Oct 6th, 2007 at 09:10

    Not entirely sure what you mean by the full-monty. You mean more of a curve on the existing opentail or conversion to a full looptail?

    I'm not a big fan of looptails when used in fonts designed for clarity/small sizes so I don't see that happening but I could re-introduce a curve if there was demand.

    [)amien

18. 18 robert Oct 7th, 2007 at 00:10

    When I entered the message, I included the g, and got the andale/consolas/pragmata version as example, but the posted version doesn't show this. I've used Envy fonts, and generally like them, except for the g. Many fonts leave the descender too small and the circle too large, Envy R not as much as some. The other versions have g as a very unique glyph; it can't be confused with anything else. Likely more work, too; I suspect.

    As to the java issue. I use jswat debugger, and Envy R is unreadable. About the only one that works is Andale; dotted zero looks too much like an 8.

19. 19 Metin Amiroff Oct 27th, 2007 at 17:10

    Damien,

    I am so pleased with your font. I cannot explain enough how nice they look under Gnome on my 19' LCD display. Here's the screeny:

    http://www.amiroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/envy_code_r9pt.png

    For combarison, Monaco from Apple:

    http://www.amiroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/monaco9pt.png

    I don't know about the license you're planning to distribute them but the reality is, *Nix world needs fonts like these so much!

    Keep up the great work!

20. 20 Damien Guard Oct 27th, 2007 at 18:10

    Thanks for the kind words - it's good to know they look pretty good under Gnome.

    The font will remain free-of-charge but copyrighted for now but if any of the Linux distributions are actually interested in including it I could quite likely be persuaded to switch to a proper open licence.

    [)amien

21. 21 Calvin Oct 28th, 2007 at 08:10

    I can't seem to install the font(s) on Vista. I get some error:

    The file is not a valid font file and cannot be installed.

    Is this a Vista problem? Or is there some special way to install the font other than to drag and drop the font files into the font folder?

22. 22 Damien Guard Oct 28th, 2007 at 17:10

    Hmm, not sure why that might be. I have finally got a copy of Vista (via the MS employee store for $45 :D ) and will be installing it just as soon as my new HD arrives (about a week).

    Will be able to test then and issue a fix.

    [)amien

23. 23 Adrian Bool Nov 8th, 2007 at 11:11

    I've been using Triskweline quite happily, at 12.5 or 13pt on a Mac,

    http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/

    I find it open and clear.

24. 24 Adrian Bool Nov 8th, 2007 at 11:11

    Mr Moderator! Please feel free to dump my previous message. I forgot to hit back and comment in a forum discussing fixed width fonts which linked to your font. I was not intending on spamming your Envy
    discussion with alternative fonts.

    I did find Triskweline more comfortable than Envy Code R though. The Zeros in Envy were far too heavy
    for me.

    Regards, aid

25. 25 Damien Guard Nov 8th, 2007 at 16:11

    It's okay, your comments can stay :) I'll give that one and shot and see what it looks like. The real problem is that the renderers on Windows, Mac, Linux and Java all draw the fonts very slightly different and diagonal lines is one of the major headaches. What looks great on Windows looks too heavy on Mac/Java...

    Once I get this font looking just how I want (probably PR7) then I'll have to seriously look into hinting the font to try and get it spot-on for each platform. Failing that I could branch off another version and tweak that for 13pt on the Mac to look just as good (I find all the characters are a bit bold on the Mac atm at 12.5).

    [)amien

26. 26 Greg Jandl Nov 15th, 2007 at 20:11

    Sweet font. I've tried it on both Linux and Windows as a font in gvim, and it looks sweet - on Windows it's getting a trial as my new programming font.

    Netbeans on Linux at 13pt is nice, but I think my current favorite (DejaVu LGC Sans Mono at 9pt or 10pt on Windows and Linux, or 13pt for Java apps like NetBeans) still wins.

    If I were forced to come up with suggestions:

    1. comma and semicolon need a bit more "swing".
    2. Java rendering of 0 is suboptimal (but you know that).
    3. WNM all get really smeared out when bold, especially in Java at 13pt.

    Great work!

27. 27 Federico Nov 29th, 2007 at 15:11

    Hi Damiel,

    your font rocks!!!!!!
    Very good!!!

    Thanks
    Bye
    Federico

28. 28 Snakeye Nov 30th, 2007 at 12:11

    Great font, I'd like to use it instead of Droid Sans Mono. Unfortunately does not work with Russian Windows-1251 codepage.

29. 29 Collin Allen Dec 20th, 2007 at 22:12

    Awesome work! This is a killer programming font, and looks to replace my current Bitstream Vera Sans Mono preference!

30. 30 Angel Jan 10th, 2008 at 23:01

    It's the best font for programming I have ever used.
    Its compact, clear and nice. Thank you for the development!

31. 31 Christopher Jan 17th, 2008 at 23:01

    Just wanted to post that I've been using the font for a few months now and am REALLY
    enjoying it. I'm using it right now with kde4 and kdevelop. I'm also one of those
    optimists that check back on your blog every few days in hope of seeing an update. I
    can hardly wait to see what more you do with it! Thanks so much! This is a phenomenal
    coding font.

    Chris

32. 32 Jagtesh Chadha Jan 29th, 2008 at 07:01

    Having gone through a barrage of monospaced fonts, I realized Envy Code R is by far the best free font available. Although, I really liked Paragmata font, I couldn't use it due to the hefty price tag on it ('am not earning yet).

    Envy Code R has everything I liked about Paragmata, so basically it's a no brainer for me.

    Thank you Damien!

33. 33 mario Mar 1st, 2008 at 06:03

    pretty font but not very usable IMHO. on my screen, commas look like periods. semicolons look like colons. two of the most important characters in C# coding.

34. 34 Deepak A Mar 6th, 2008 at 20:03

    Wow!!! This is the best font I have ever seen. Thank you.

35. 35 shawn Mar 27th, 2008 at 20:03

    Damien,

    I've been using envy r vs for awhile now and I am hooked hard, but I am running into the weirdest issue with it. Whenever I view Visual Studio (08 or 05) over remote desktop, all of the lowercase a's are converted to lowercase d's. This is kind of a nutty problem, but do you have any ideas about it?

    Thanks,
    Shawn

36. 36 Eric Mar 29th, 2008 at 23:03

    For a newbie, how does one install fonts from the files in the zip archive that I downloaded, there's no installer (setup.exe). I have windows xp sp2.

    thanks

37. 37 Damien Guard Mar 30th, 2008 at 02:03

    Go into Start Menu > Control Panel > Fonts

    Now unzip the file using extract all. Then drag the .ttf and .otf files from the unzipped folder into the Fonts window.

    [)amien

38. 38 Sven Apr 7th, 2008 at 13:04

    hi,
    i have some trouble getting the "italicasbold" version to work under vista sp1.
    it seems its not recognized as a valid truetype font :(

39. 39 Sven Apr 8th, 2008 at 07:04

    I donn't know why but its working today. oO

    Stupid Vista...

40. 40 ?? Apr 15th, 2008 at 05:04

    ?~~Very Nice~~ I like It

41. 41 Alvaro May 1st, 2008 at 01:05

    I'm using the fonts in my text editor, too. Very clear.

42. 42 Amazing! May 8th, 2008 at 23:05

    This is just..WOW!!! amazing, perfect coding font!

43. 43 Darin Aug 8th, 2008 at 17:08

    Hey Damien
    Just came across this post and your fonts. Very nice. and I really like your color scheme.

    I've been a consolas guy for a number of years now, and one of the big reasons is the lower "m".

    Envy seems to have a similar prob as a lot of other fonts. I'm guessing because it's compressed a bit horizontally, the lower m doesn't have much space to breath, so (at least to my eyes), it tends to fuzz considerably at 14 pt in VS.

    Whereas Consolas's lower m is much clearer.

    However, I really like your line draw chars, and the Bold-Italic trick for VS is utterly fantastic.

    Do you see what I mean about the m's? I can shoot you some screen shots if you like. And again, it might just be me

44. 44 Thura Z. Aug 18th, 2008 at 13:08

    Thanks...it works really nice on e-text editor and Aptana IDE.

45. 45 Chankit Oct 29th, 2008 at 17:10

    Many thanks, it looks so good that I start to enjoy coding :D

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