Show HN: Xenia – A monospaced font built with a custom Python engine
I'm an engineer who spent the last year fixing everything I hated about monofonts (especially that double-story 'a').

I built a custom Python-based procedural engine to generate the weights because I wanted more logical control over the geometry. It currently has 700+ glyphs and deep math support.

Regular weight is free for the community. I'm releasing more weights based on interest.

The 'a' and the 'o' are a bit similar, but all in all I can see myself trying this out. Reminds me a bit of Comic Code and Maple Mono. Thanks for sharing!

There are a few odd things about this post though. Take this as well-intentioned feedback.

- New account. No previous submissions or comments.

- New Github account. No previous activity.

- Mentions custom engine (cool!), but omits any details.

- Calls other mono fonts 'fugly'; refuses to elaborate.

- Releasing based on interest feels like engagement farming. Let me know when it's done. Then I'll judge whether I'm interested.

- Regular weights are free. Implication is that other weights will be paid. That's fine. I'm happy to pay for fonts. But I'm unlikely to try a font in earnest without bold and italics.

Sorry if this comes off as harsh. I wish you the best with this!

I find the "i" quite excruciating to look at.

Also would like to see more examples, say including this deep math.

It's just letting you dot your Ts and cross your Is. ;)

EDIT: The joke wasn't that bad. :(

I liked it :3 thought it was funny
:3
  • Y_Y
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  • 5 hours ago
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It's like a dotted version of the false/bottom symbol from logic: ⊥̇
  • zvr
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  • 2 hours ago
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Nice work!

Your documentation should definitely list the Unicode code points / glyphs covered, for people to get an idea which scripts are supported.

Also, the repository has a LICENSE file with the MIT license text, but the actual font file (.ttf) embeds the information that it's licensed under SIL Open Font License 1.1. One of these two pieces of information needs to be corrected.

  • seized
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  • 42 minutes ago
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Calla the "a" in other fonts fugly, does that with the lowercase "i"... Something about living in glass houses maybe.
Could you share more information on this custom python procedural engine?
There is a name collision with the Xenia emulator for the Xbox 360. https://xenia.jp/
  • ako
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  • 5 hours ago
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I would suggest making the screenshot with the font at different sizes. They first thing I want is to have an approximation of how it will look at small sizes.
Does it emulate an XBOX 360?
  • toyg
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  • 2 hours ago
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"a" and "o" are way too similar, sorry. It's a pet peeve of mine.
I tried this font out but had issues with the terminal in VS code.
Why do this rather than just using METAFONT/METAPOST/METATYPE1?
It's not very easy to use Metafont and its derivatives to produce a modern TrueType/OpenType font. Even the TeX Gyre fonts use FontForge [0] rather than Metafont.

[0]: https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/tex-gyre/source