ANN: New Plugin: embed Fira Code font

[Scott Sauyet]

There is a new plugin hosted at http://scott.sauyet.com/tiddlywiki/plugins/FiraCode.html.

It is used to embed the Fira Code font [1] in a TW5.  Fira Code has a large number of ligatures that help turn ugly sequences of symbols such as `<=` into more elegant-looking symbols like ` ≤` -- without altering your actual text.  Thanks are due to Mat for helping me through some final issues [2].

I find this font extremely helpful in documenting code.  I wrote it to scratch my own itch, but I think others may find it useful.

I am hoping for feedback.  Anything is welcome, but I do specifically want to know a few things:

  - Is this a reasonably well-written plugin?  Did I break any important rules?

  - Is hosting the plugin on a web page like this a reasonable means of distributing it?  Or is the norm to create a GitHub repo?

  - Is the text of the README and the USAGE sections appropriate?  I'm assuming a reader who has some experience with TW, but not necessarily one who is an expert.  Is that the correct -- or at least the conventional -- way to write these?

  - Should I slim it down?  The four font-weights included bring this plugin up to 1 MiB.  Should I remove everything but 400 and 700 weights, cutting it in half?  (Anyone know anything about font-weight support in browsers and/or community usage?)  Or should I offer a "full" and a "light" version of this?

Thanks for any feedback you can share,

  -- Scott

  [1]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode

  [2]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlywiki/u8YQ0oQ59is

[Mat]

Just to make sure things work properly... and I got hesitant because you say

symbols such as `<=` into more elegant-looking symbols like ` ≤` 

This is what the Readme examples look like on my screen

 ...i.e the font does change but  e.g `<=` does not look like the elegant ` ≤` you propose here and the second example, the arrow, is even less prettier after than before. Peeking in the inspector tool does show that it has font Fira Code so I'm wondering if everything works correctly? (I should probably have reacted to this already yesterday, sorry.)

I'm on a Windows machine, maybe this messes things up?

<:-)

[Scott Sauyet]

Mat,

Thanks for the report.

That explains why you thought it was so subtle!  And that sentence you quote wasn't in the version I posted while looking for help.  I added it because of your comment about subtlety.   

This is what I see (note that this is in a different location than was my request for help; it's now at http://scott.sauyet.com/tiddlywiki/plugins/FiraCode.html)

I don't know if this is a difference from your Windows to my Ubuntu; I've tested this font on Windows computers, but I haven't yet tested this plugin.  I'll pull out my work laptop soon to investigate.  Out of curiosity, what version of Windows are you using?

Thanks,

  -- Scott

[Mat]

Out of curiosity, what version of Windows are you using?

Win10 Home

<:-) 

[Scott Sauyet]

I did confirm this problem on Win10 Enterprise.  I really should learn something about fonts.

I'm making no sense of it yet.  Will keep pluggin' away at it.

  -- Scott

[Ste Wilson]

Just checked on Firefox and chrome on android and get mats result :(

[David Nebauer]

Thanks, Scott. Looks great on debian linux in qutebrowser, google-chrome and firefox.

Regards,

David.

[Scott Sauyet]

@ David:

Thanks for the report.  I'm glad it's working well *somewhere*!

I haven't had time yet to dig in to see why it's not working as a plugin in Windows, although the underlying technique is working fine for me.  I hope to find time this evening.   But if not, it may be a few days.

  -- Scott

[David Gifford]

I realize there seem to be some hiccoughs, but I added this to the toolmap anyway. Blessings

Dave