Monospace font in which 'l' doesn't look like '1'

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21

Sorry feathermonkey - I’m not sure I follow you.

Do you mean this list? Local Font List [ETA Oh - I think I get you. That’s actually a realtime generated list of what firefox has found on the local system… Fair enough.]

Are these going to be on a new SUSE install, and a normal Windows install?

If so, DejaVu Sans Mono (as suggested by cjcox) looks ideal - Mitra Mono has a good l, but a silly 0.

If anyone has any other preferences for a ‘shortlist’, post now or forever hold your peace…

I’ll start a poll in a few days to see what others think…

22

It would also help to know what we’re currently using - for all I know it is DejaVu Sans Mono, and it’s just hard to tell the difference because of the size… :\

23

Right. Best ignore that. :slight_smile:

Now that I’ve found the right system (doh!), it actually looks like DejaVu is the only sensible option…

And I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re using already. :frowning:

Whoops. Back to your scheduled programming…

24

Have a look at Dec Terminal and Misc Fixed both of which have the differences I think you are looking for.

25

Go no further:
Latin Modern Mono [lmfonts.rpm]
Lucida Console
(and a bunch of non-scalable xterm bitmap fonts of course)
Even Microsoft’s Courier New would work.

26

I think you will find that Courier New does not make as strong a distinction between the two as either Dec Terminal or Fixed Misc. I don’t have the other two installed to check.

27

Hmm… Well something’s obviously up, as I’m not seeing the right fonts. Could be a discrepancy between the RC I’m using and the final release, or could just be the thoroughly broken state of my system - hopefully I’ll get a chance to fully reinstall using the GM later today.

If anybody has a particular pressing urge to start said poll, go ahead. I’m not ignoring this thread, and I’ll get there eventually…

28

Click to enlarge screenshot.
Notice that on 100% of all cases (in this screenshot :wink: ) ‘l’ != ‘I’, simply because the I has a complete horizontal bar on top, while the l does not. And the ‘1’ you can distinguish from the ‘l’ because it has a diagonal stroke.
[N.B.: tosh, mux (2nd not pictured) is from hxtools.rpm.]

29

> ‘Click to enlarge screenshot.’
> (http://picpaste.de/pics/1li.1258994468.png)
> Notice that on 100% of all cases (in this screenshot :wink: ) ‘l’ != ‘I’,
> simply because the I has a complete horizontal bar on top, while the l
> does not. And the ‘1’ you can distinguish from the ‘l’ because it has a
> diagonal stroke.
> [N.B.: tosh, mux (2nd not pictured) is from hxtools.rpm.]

Don’t forget to test the O0 problem.

30

Argh. Well I finally got 11.2 freshly installed again (another story) in order to check, and I’ve found the xlsfonts utility for displaying a font list.

Would all these be available for a website to use then? It’s a lot more than in the ‘local font list’.

EDIT - aha! xfontsel may be the way to do this…!

31

> Would all these be available for a website to use then? It’s a lot more
> than in the ‘local font list’.

unfortunately, the web server doesn’t “serve fonts” instead it only
sends plain text messages with html ‘tag’ specifying how the plain
text is to be rendered by the receiver’s browser…

the plain text html tags can specify whichever font the page designer
wishes without regard to whether or not the server has that font, or
zero fonts installed…

background info on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_family_(HTML)

now, what is seen by the receiver can only come from fonts installed
on his/her machine…

and, as stated earlier, if the page’s html code specifies a font not
on the users machine, then another (the browser’s default) will be
substituted (and you would be right back to not able to read Ov0 or lv1)…

it is routine for web page designers to specify a “font family” so as
to provide a page readable by the most possible receivers…and one
font from that ‘family’ might display O and 0 differently, while the
next might they might appear almost the same…

your question then would have to read: Would all the fonts available
on my machine be available on all computer users around the world who
might want to read the forums?

and, the answer is no…

however, if the web page specified a microsoft font it would probably
work fine for over 90% of all potential readers (but, would we really
wanna do that?)

so, as far as i know the best thing for you to do is find a font with
O 0 1 and ls which makes you happy and select that as your browser’s
default…

other users here will have to solve their O v 0 problem themselves…

otoh, posters here could help by using “code” tags or amplifying
notes, and some do…like


cat /boot/0Original.menu.lst1

that is 0[zero]O[Oscar]riginal[lima].menu.l[ima]st1[one]

of course, that is a lot of trouble for posters and it is much easier
for the users to follow previous advice to simply copy/past commands…

–
palladium

32

I understand now the way the webserver ‘suggests’ fonts - I guess what’s confusing me is the huge disparity between the number of fonts reported by ‘local font list’ and xlsfonts.

Frustrating. :\

33

Confuseling wrote:
> huge disparity between the number of fonts reported by ‘local font
> list’ and xlsfonts.

the list given by xlsfonts is all the fonts, with all their
variables (sizes, character sets, etc) so each line in xlsfonts would
represent only one line like Adobe Courier, but then you can spin
select lots of sizes and special characters they may or may not exist
in your language…

where do you see the ‘local font list’?

–
palladium

34

Local font list was a link provided by FeatherMonkey. It is getting them from the system - it’s different depending on which OS I’m on - but it’s hard to guess how comprehensive it is.

Local Font List

There is some overlap with xlsfonts, but I can’t account for the differences solely by the other variables you mention.

Baffled.

35

> ‘Local Font List’
> (http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/font/fontlist.htm)

kewl.

–
palladium

36

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:26:01 GMT, Confuseling
<Confuseling@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>Yes, but this has nothing to do with me not liking the font, and
>everything to do with new users (normally running the default openSUSE
>du jour) not knowing whether they’re looking at '1’s or 'l’s.
>
>So you might disagree with me that it’s a significant problem. Or you
>might disagree that it’s practicable to find a better font which is
>either already in the default install (and presumably hopefully has an
>analogue in Windows), or easy (fast) enough for the default system to
>download and use…
>
>But the fact that you can override it doesn’t matter, any more than if
>the background of the forum made it hard to read text it would matter
>that you can turn off ‘display images’ or change the way it renders the
>text.

That’s mild, what in the hell is the fascination with sans serif fonts
anyway? They never look as nice as serif fonts. imnsho.

37

Interesting. I deleted that post immediately after I posted it, having decided that it might come across as slightly aggressive in the context (giving up cigarettes and in a constantly foul mood :)).

So palladium - I take it that was the post you were responding to when you said that you were baffled that I seemed to take it that you were agreeing or disagreeing with me?

Not that it matters. Just intriguing that a deleted post goes through into NNTP anyway… Is that a bug?

38

Confuseling wrote:
> Not that it matters. Just intriguing that a deleted post goes through
> into NNTP anyway… Is that a bug?

it still exists in NNTP posted 18/11/09 15:26 (my time probably) as
Message-ID <Confuseling.41up5b@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>

and i guess always will…

it is interesting that you deleted it, apparently after the 10 minute
“edit” period which (i think) is in place to prevent messages to be
different in the NNTP and HHTP database…

so, i guess it could well be a bug since the message is VERY different
in the two areas (exists in one and not the other)…

maybe Kim or Jim can look into it…

–
palladium

39

If I recall correctly (which isn’t a given) I deleted it within thirty seconds of posting it…

40

Confuseling wrote:
> If I recall correctly (which isn’t a given) I deleted it within thirty
> seconds of posting it…

amazing…seems to me i should have never seen it…

someone with the means to look at it should try to figure out why it
ever made it to the NNTP side…

i figured you were having a bad day…i do hope you are still off that
terribly destructive nicotine addiction…

i quit in '94 and consider it the best thing i ever did for myself…
three years ago a friend who stopped in '92 died of lung cancer…

–
palladium