Fira Code: monospaced font with programming ligatures
Problem
Programmers use a lot of symbols, often encoded with several characters. For the human brain, sequences like ->
, <=
or :=
are single logical tokens, even if they take two or three characters on the screen. Your eye spends a non-zero amount of energy to scan, parse and join multiple characters into a single logical one. Ideally, all programming languages should be designed with full-fledged Unicode symbols for operators, but that’s not the case yet.
Solution
Fira Code v1.102 | Install | Follow updates 📢 @FiraCode
Download Fira Code is an extension of the Fira Mono font containing a set of ligatures for common programming multi-character combinations. This is just a font rendering feature: underlying code remains ASCII-compatible. This helps to read and understand code faster. For some frequent sequences like ..
or //
, ligatures allow us to correct spacing.
Terminal support
Works | Doesn’t work |
---|---|
Black Screen | GNOME Terminal |
Konsole | iTerm 2 (feature request) |
QTerminal | rxvt |
Terminal.app (OS X default terminal) | xfce4-terminal |
Termux (Android terminal emulator) | |
Butterfly |
Editor support
Works | Doesn’t work |
---|---|
Anjuta (unless at the EOF) | Arduino IDE |
Atom 1.1 or newer (instructions) | Adobe Dreamweaver |
BBEdit (instructions) | Eclipse (Mac and Win, vote here) |
Brackets (with this plugin) | Standalone Emacs (workaround) |
Chocolat | gVim |
Coda 2 | IDLE |
CodeLite | KDevelop 4 |
Eclipse (Linux) | Monkey Studio IDE |
Geany | NetBeans |
gEdit / Pluma | Notepad++ |
GNOME Builder | Spyder IDE |
IntelliJ products (IDEA etc, instructions) | SublimeText (vote here) |
Kate, KWrite | |
Komodo | |
Leafpad | |
LibreOffice | |
LightTable (instructions) | |
MacVim 7.4 or newer (instructions) | |
Mancy | |
Meld | |
Mousepad | |
Notepad (Win) | |
QtCreator | |
RStudio (instructions) | |
Scratch | |
TextAdept (Linux, Mac) | |
TextEdit | |
TextMate 2 | |
Visual Studio 2015 | |
Visual Studio Code (instructions) | |
Xamarin Studio/Monodevelop | |
Xcode (with this plugin) | |
Probably work: Smultron, Vico | Under question: Code::Blocks IDE |
Browser support
- IE 10+, Edge: enable with
font-feature-settings: "calt" 1;
- Firefox
- Safari
- Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Opera):
- enable with
font-variant-ligatures: contextual;
ortext-rendering: optimizeLegibility
, see 571246
- enable with
- ACE
- CodeMirror
Code examples
Ruby:
JavaScript:
Erlang:
Go:
LiveScript:
Alternatives
Other monospaced fonts with ligatures:
- Hasklig (free)
- PragmataPro (€59)
- Monoid (free)
- Fixedsys Excelsior (free)
- Iosevka (free)
Credits
- Author: Nikita Prokopov @nikitonsky
- Based on: Fira Mono
- Inspired by: Hasklig
- Software: Glyphs 2 (thx Georg Seifert for a license)
Changelog
1.102
- Support for IntelliJ-based IDEs (instructions)
- Turned on autohinting
1.101
- Added Light weight
- Adjusted rules when vertical centering of
:
,-
,*
and+
occurs
1.100
- Fixed calt table conflicts (
----
would incorrectly render as<!--
) - Added centered
:
(between digits, e.g.10:40
) - Added lowercase-aligned
-
,*
and+
(only between lowercase letters, e.g. kebab casevar-name
, pointers*ptr
etc)
1.000
Added weights:
- Retina (just slightly heavier than Regular)
- Medium
- Bold
Switched to calt
instead of liga
. You can now “step inside” the ligature in text editors.
Fira Code is now drawn and built in Glyphs 2 app (should improve compatibility).
Added:
<->
<~~
<~
~~~
~>
~~>
<$
<+
<*
*>
+>
$>
;;;
:::
!!!
???
%%
%%%
##
###
####
.-
#_(
=<
**/
0x
www
[]
Redrawn:
{-
-}
~=
=~
=<<
>>=
<$>
<=>
.=
Removed: ?:
Total ligatures count: 115
0.6
Redrawn from Fira Mono 3.204 (slightly heavier weight)
Added:
**
***
+++
--
---
?:
/=
/==
.=
^=
=~
?=
||=
|=
<<<
<=<
-<<
-<
>-
>>-
>=>
>>>
<*>
<|>
<$>
<+>
<!--
{-
-}
/**
\\
\\\
..<
??
|||
&&&
<|
|>
Added support for Powerline
0.5
Added: #{
~-
-~
<==
==>
///
;;
</
0.4
- Added
~=
~~
#[
- Rolled back
&&
and||
to more traditional look ===
and!==
are now rendered with 3 horizontal bars
0.3
Added: ~@
#?
=:=
=<
0.2.1
Fixed width of &&
and ||
0.2
Added: -->
<--
&&
||
=>>
=/=
0.1
>>=
=<<
<<=
->>
->
=>
<<-
<-
===
==
<=>
>=
<=
>>
<<
!==
!=
<>
:=
++
#(
#_
::
...
..
!!
//
/*
*/
/>