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Comment by armadillu | Hacker News Reader

I can only really judge a font when its loaded in my system, running in my setup. I wish font makers targeting developers would release trial fonts (with some essential chars missing or similar), so that we could test them properly before paying.

I am always looking for a better font, and this one looks like it may be an improvement over my current one.

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My thoughts exactly. Berkeley Mono looks great on the website and in the PDF data sheet, but the real test is how does it look in my terminal and editor, especially when compared side-by-side with my current preferred font (Pragmata Pro; also commercial but well worth it!)

I purchased Berkeley Mono to give it a shot. While I found it visually appealing, it still cannot compete in the terminal against Pragmata Pro due to how narrow Pragmata Pro is. I can fit so much more on my screen yet still have it be clean and legible with Pragmata Pro.

We've been working on a condensed version, it has been almost complete (all 440+ glyphs) since last year but it has a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out. This will also enable a Width ('wdth') axis on variable fonts so if your editor supports, can smoothly go from Regular ---> Condensed ---> Compressed versions.

There is also a complete Extended version but it has many issues, we won't be releasing that anytime soon.

Thanks and good feedback, beta testing was done in a similar way - font cut with a few missing glyphs and was limited to ASCII-basic set. I'll see if I can extend this more generally.

I'd second the vote for some "testing" fonts. At the very least, could you include some screenshots of larger chunks of code, with {} etc? I can't really tell how this will look on a screen full of code.

Here is some Python, but no {}: https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-february-update/#b...

I'll plan for a nice page with various languages and full page screenshots.

Edit: Fixed link, thanks.

Broken link, access denied.

I get an Error 1011 message:

The owner of this website (neil.computer) does not allow hotlinking to that resource (/content/images/2022/02/Artboard-5.png).

Here’s an alternative link: https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-february-update/#b...

Please include screenshots from both Windows and MacOS.

And in sizes from 8px to 12px.

Better yet, make a trial version of the font available.

The same think happens with this font, as with some many others. It's absolutely beautiful, it looks like it was just designed for coding. Then I see actual code written with the font and goes: "Well, that was disappointing".

Don't get me wrong, it beautiful, easy to read and the price is right (in my opinion), but when you see the Python, even at 17pt, it seems squished. The characters just blurs together. This font either requires insane amounts of whitespace around it, or a high font size, I'm guessing no less than 20pt. Maybe it's just the line height that makes it weird, the characters seems like they need to be wider to avoid losing details.

Send me an email[1] and I can send you a beta copy to try out. IMO the picture doesn't do the justice (it is not like the way you describe it at all), but I am seriously considering creating a specific license for a trial + font cut that is missing a few glyphs. That's going to take some time. Here is some feedback from this thread :) : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30559060

Of course, I use it daily for writing code but I am biased :)

[1] neil@berkeleygraphics.com

Trial versions are ready and already sent to the mailing list! Please send us an email if you want to try now. Should be generally available on the website this week.

I agree, although I'm not sure if it's partly an unflattering screenshot. To me some of the lowercase letters look a bit indistinct (especially the 'e's and 'a's).

Yes please - in my case because fonts look different on Windows and Mac (and Linux?) and I've been caught a few times after buying fonts that looked great only to discover all screenshots were from Macs and on Windows it was nothing like it.

One idea to consider... offer the font but with the vowels jumbled around and the digits jumbled around. I can see everything I need. But would need to buy it if I really want to use it.

MonoLisa has a playground where you can paste code snippets and try the font - that might be a good approach for other fonts aimed at developers. https://www.monolisa.dev/playground

[I am not affiliated with MonoLisa]

MonoLisa also has a trial version. [1] They have a great site, I love the font, and the availability of a free trial was the icing on the cake. Great experience all around.

https://www.monolisa.dev/buy/661578

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