[wonger_]

I've been keeping a list of monospace pages: https://wonger.dev/posts/monospace-dump#web. Currently have ~50.

Spacing is a challenge. And you lose some legibility giving up proportional fonts. I think kerning in proportional fonts makes a big difference, letting your eyes recognize the shape of different letter groupings.

Monospace text is fine if you avoid long-form text, like when it's structured and highlighted in a code editor.

But it sure is pretty! Especially with Unicode charts and ASCII art.

[aversis_]

Kerning makes such a huge difference in proportional fonts. Proper kerning allows your brain process word shapes much faster.

[taeric]

I'm curious if there are studies for this? In particular, I always think back to how few people notice common ligatures in books that they are reading. To the point that I would generally be willing to wager decent money, thinking 90% odds, that any given friend/family I have has not noticed it in books that they are reading. Only indicator I have that someone is aware of them, is if they know any typography terms already. :D

[dsp_person]

I'm curious about this too. Is this just preference/taste and the way everyone does things, or is there evidence to back it up. What could a modern study look like? There are so many aspects like the font, size, width or how much fixed width spacing between chars, screen/page size, background color, type of content. And are there other metrics than reading speed? Like information retention, or psychological effects like do people feel positively or negatively about the content/topic/reading experience.

I found this https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/48753/does-the-use-of...

- > In Universal Principles of Design, the entry on legibility states: Proportionally spaced typefaces are preferred over monospaced.

- It's unclear if that book provides further evidence to this statement

- > One famous research on this is Beldie I. P., Pastoor S. & Schwarz E, 1983, “Fixed versus variable letter width for televised text”, Human Factors, 25, pp.273-277, where part of the results include: The reading time (Task 1) with the variable-matrix character design was 69.1 s on the average, and the mean reading time with the fixed-matrix character set was 73.3 s, t (8) = 2.76, p < 0.02. The difference is 4.2 s or 6.1% (related to fixed-matrix characters).

- I couldn't find a pdf of that one in particular. The difference seems small

- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929021014673...

- > Comic Sans MS, Arial and Times New Roman typefaces, regardless of size, were found to be more readable (as measured by a reading efficiency score) than Courier New.

- small sample size 27 children. also the children preferred comic sans... we could pick a cooler monospace font than courier new

- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10209-015-0438-8

- > It was found that larger text and larger character spacings lead the participants with and without dyslexia to read significantly faster

- unclear if those were monospaced

- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/20925173_Reading_wi...

> We compared the effects of fixed and variable (proportional) spacing on reading speeds and found variable pitch to yield better performance at medium and large character sizes and fixed pitch to be superior for character sizes approaching the acuity limit.

[wonger_]

NN group might have some resources, like this related article about all-caps: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/glanceable-fonts/

Or maybe more resources here: https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/readability_and_accessibi...

People tend to apply results from proportional font studies to monospace fonts. I guess monospace text isn't popular enough to get its own studies.

We need more readability A/B tests in general.

[andirk]

ASCII art was so cool! After getting my day's work done in typing class, we could try our hand at making ASCII art via a list of commands to follow, and without knowing the final image. Like:

15 space, 1 V, 3 U, 1 V

15 space, 5 U

12 space, 2 x, 5 U, 2 x

and then after 250 lines, a pic of Jordan dunking would show up once done and we could print it!

[dspillett]

One of your examples is now a for sale domain. Still on WBM though: https://web.archive.org/web/20230216225350/https://kary.us/n...

[wonger_]

Thanks! I've updated the list with more archived links.

[Razengan]

> Monospace text is fine if you avoid long-form text, like when it's structured and highlighted in a code editor.

I agree, monospace without color and some formatting is like giving up a sense or spatial dimension. It's pointless austerity.

[michaelcampbell]

Why must monospace give up color?

[jareklupinski]

here's one more for the list :) https://jarek.lupin.ski/tape-deck/

[kristopolous]

maybe there needs to be a gopher protocol refresh. some 2024 approach of the same idea.

[klez]

The problem is not really with the protocol or the file formats, though.

I gave this some thought in the past, and, since this is more of an artistic/crafting endavor than anything else I'd say we decide on some arbitrary rules (like "only monospace fonts, no external javascript, only static content", I don't know, I'm just spitballing here) and create our own certification to display at the top of the page (like the omnipresent top-right oblique ribbon of yesterdecade or, even better, the little badges we used at the turn of the century), then we make a central list where people can add their website.

[gwern]

> 'd say we decide on some arbitrary rules (like "only monospace fonts, no external javascript, only static content",

I think that's a great idea. You can go a long way with just Unicode these days: https://gwern.net/utext

All you need HTML/CSS for in an ordinary Gemini/gopher/Markdown-style document is clickable hyperlinks, really, and you can hack that by alternating a bit of HTML or by client-side convention.

[Dalewyn]

>"only monospace fonts, no external javascript, only static content"

So most of the Japanese amateur internet? :V

(CJK fonts are mostly monospace.)

[Shugyousha]

Have you heard about https://geminiprotocol.net/ ?