Tracking / Letter Spacing

[Mark2Mark]

Note on the spacing decissions

When I decided for the spacing initially, it snapped better to the pixel grid in some environments like the Mac Terminal with small font sizes (like 10~12), which Gintronic is designed to work in well. Different code editors seem to interpret font spacing slightly different. However, this seems a less relevant nowadays, which is why I also decided to make its spacing more common with other programming fonts.

How to get a narrower spaced Gintronic?

Since times, software and hardware have changed, I have an updated version with narrower letter spacing at hand. Please contact me with your invoice if you want to get it.

If you got Gintronic via bBox Type

The "original" Gintronic on bBox will not get this particular update, since it would break downwards compatibility with certain users. In case you bought it from there and want the update, please let me know here.

[Mark2Mark]

refer: Note

[effinsky]

is there anywhere one can see the decreased letter spacing before getting the font?

[Mark2Mark]

Hi @effinsky, thanks for asking.

Yes, I’ll attach a set of screenshots for different languages here. These show the current state of the Gintronic with the narrower (soon default) letter spacing.

I hope this helps to get a better idea. Let me know if you want more/better images.

Python

PHP

Objective-C

Markdown

Kotlin

Java

Haskel

HTML & Twig

Go

TypeScript

Swift

React JS

CSS

ANSI

SwiftUI

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(VSC Theme is "Ayu Mirage Plus" with italics activated)

[effinsky]

Thanks a bunch, Mark. That's awesome. It's such a funky font!

[7v0lk0v]

Hi Mark, any chance you could post one side by side comparison with the old version, and if not too much trouble against Consola just as a baseline comparison with a standard font? I can tell it's much better but it's still a bit hard to gauge.

[Mark2Mark]

I can do the side by side later when back on the computer.

[Mark2Mark]

Quick note: as I am currently on a work travel, I am a little slower with such things, but I’ll try to, as soon as I get a spare hour. Sorry for the waiting.

[7v0lk0v]

You're too kind, take your time.

[Mark2Mark]

Sorry for the waiting, I am more occupied here than I anticipated.

To shorten the waiting, here’s a quick comparisson of Gintronic (narrower spacing) and Menlo. I don’t have Consolas on my machine, but Menlo is one default option on the Mac, so maybe that can do?

Gintronic - Python

Menlo - Python

[Mark2Mark]

Here a quick comparisson of Python code in Gintronic.

1. wide spacing, as it currently ships per default
2. narrow spacing, as I currently send it out on request, and will be the default soon.

Gintronic - wide spacing

Gintronic - narrow spacing

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I also added a note about the wide/narrow design decissions into the first post of this thread.

[7v0lk0v]

That's great, thank you!

[7v0lk0v]

This looks a lot better, the old width made this delicious font unusable for me.

Do you have an ETA on the release and will it include fixes to the 'x' and '~' tickets?

[Mark2Mark]

Thanks for the feedback.

ETA is a little hard to pin, as I want the coding ligatures also to be included and I assume about 2 or 3 weeks for the set I think will come to live. Also I won’t be at my desk before mid September, so somewhat in October could be feasible. I hope you don't mind the waiting too much.

Those other issues will be fixed, as well.

[7v0lk0v]

I can live with that :), was afraid you'd say a few months.

Is there any chance of adding a variant where the numbers are base aligned? While I like the funky look I found it a bit too distracting after a while. Maybe with the new width it'll be less of an issue, but thought I'd ask anyway.

[Mark2Mark]

Thanks for the head up!

Oh, the numbers are actually also on the road map, to make the lining figures the default. But thanks for the reminder, I'll open a public issue for that 😇

[7v0lk0v]

Hi @Mark2Mark, happy new year. Would love to start the new year with a fancy new font, any progress?

[Mark2Mark]

Happy new year and thanks for pushing. Not yet, but it will come soon. Had some unpredictable circumstances recently that slowed me down from progress, unfortunately. But I am on it 😇

[7v0lk0v]

Hi @Mark2Mark, any ETA?

[Mark2Mark]

Sorry for the waiting. Hope to get it out around May or June. Unfortunately life is throwing some bricks that slow things down significantly ...

[7v0lk0v]

No problem at all, there's a lot of that going around. Take your time, I'll stop pushing and just wait for your next update.