I'm not saying anyone should switch to #KDE#Plasma for trifling reasons (especially if you're on a kick-butt customized tiling WM), but Konsole does all kinds of cute things like change *** so that the middle * is higher, and turn -> and --> into solid arrows. It also groups two or three repeating colons into a somewhat tighter spacing, presumably for
::: headers like this :::
(Once you get to four or more repeating colons, it reverts to monospace, otherwise the layout would get all messed up)
I spend a lot of my day job in Windows, and Kate is so much better than the Windows-equivalent GUI tools that it's part of my standard install now. I never did get the hype behind Notepad++; it's more capable than Notepad, sure, but so is, well, anything. Kate is much better than either and it looks good doing it too.
@tippfehlr@RL_Dane That's purely a font thing, isn't it? If your font supports ligatures, they are also shown in Firefox for example. If your font doesn't support ligatures, I suppose you also wouldn't get them in Konsole. But of course there are uncountable other terminal emulators that also have ligatures, so definitely not the main draw towards using it. Tabs, splits, profiles, etc. are way better reasons. :)
@RL_Dane
It looks like it was a false assumption on my side. Most software I've been using in recent years supports it and I'm using my custom compiled Iosevka font with ligatures for C-style languages everywhere where I want monospace. Even when I had to use Windows I saw, that Windows Terminal supported ligatures. So I assumed it was pretty standard. @tippfehlr
@sotolf@RL_Dane Seems like that. I didn't like them at first (Fira Code), but once I get used to it now it's the contrary... I really miss them if I can't use them. ;)
@sotolf@RL_Dane If you try to use a font with ligatures in a text editor, terminal emulator etc. without ligatures support, or with that support disabled... Then ligatures are just not displayed, and defaults to the"usual" behaviour. But I don't know if I understand if that was the case where "the ligatures wouldn't fit with the rest of the font" you were referring to.
@sotolf Yeah, and that's another argument against Konsole doing "in-terminal" ligatures, meaning, adding that itself. I think if @RL_Dane didn't noticed that JetBrains has ligatures before is just because he never used before any software capable of rendering them https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode#terminal-compatibility-list or it could, but the "switch" was off. ;)
@sotolf Summing up for @RL_Dane (anybody correct me if I'm wrong):
Some fonts (Fira Code, JetBrains Mono) can display ligatures. But that will only happen if you use a software capable of rendering them (Konsole, Kitty, Eclipse...), and the option to display them is "on", if not by default.
Not sure. For some things, it's just kerning (like the :::)
But other thing like the arrows... can you really tell one font's arrows from another's? Maybe so.
It's still monospace, but certain ligatures (:: and ::: specifically) can be grouped together with different spacing for readability, but the group of two or three characters still fit within the monospacing of the line, and don't mess up the monospacing for any other characters.
No, think of it like three merged cells in a spreadsheet. It doesn't follow the same rules as the rest of the sheet, but it doesn't mess up the sheet, either.
@sotolf@RL_Dane Now that you mention it... Just yesterday I saw some people talking about using proportional fonts for coding (!) Can't find the link now, but here's this. https://storck.io/posts/proportional-programming-code-fonts/ There are some proportional fonts designed to be used in coding environments... You may know about that already, but I confess it surprised me a bit. :)
Yeah, I can see things going that way. Hard pass.
It's really a question of whether you're writing TEXT, or if code becomes another lousy DOCUMENT FORMAT.
If the code editor is relying on some kind of built-in linter to line things up and whatnot... yeeesh
@RL_Dane@sotolf Yeah, I can think of some... Inconveniences myself. That's why I said it surprised me, I had for granted that monospaced fonts were the default for coding, if there is one. But of course, in the tech world you can give very few things, if any, for granted. XD
I don't mean to be too terribly flippant, as it's always good to try to find something to innovate (and then figure out if it's actually useful later -- otherwise you'd never try anything), but honestly, it really surprises me sometimes how badly people want to make things WORSE for the sake of some silly idea they have in their head, disconnected from the entirety of reality.
Not trying to be in-your-face on the subject, but honestly what you're describing reminds me a lot of reading the bible in more recent, very-plain-tongued translations. It kind of peels back the layers of fluff and familiarity and reacquaints me with the essence of the text.
Real coders do an interpretive dance in front of their ssd which causes their body to selectively act as a lens for cosmic rays to shift the bits on the disk.
@sotolf@RL_Dane I guess it's the same if we talk about, IDK, aubergines. Some people like them, some don't. ;) In my case -and again, once I get used to them-, I think they help me a bit with code readability, but (mandatory) YMMV. ;)
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