v1.072 – Map Slant axis for more geometrically-accurate degree values, improve ss08

In variable fonts, Slant axis values are intended to match degrees of rotation. However, if a Slant axis merely has linear interpolation, this will be slightly inaccurate. Additionally, because Recursive has a slightly special Slant axis, which slants up to 14° and then activates italic/cursive forms beyond that, the axis was a little further off. At -14, it was off by nearly a full degree.

Most of the time, this small inaccuracy wouldn’t matter or even be perceptible – a slanted font, especially in text, usually just needs to be slanted enough to show emphasis. However, in certain situations, a more-accurate Slant value might be desirable. This axis has now been given an AVAR axis map to be more accurate and now provides this behavior:

• From 0 to -14.04, slanting very accurate matches real degrees of clockwise rotation (a “forward” slant)
• At -14.05 and beyond, cursive lowercase forms are shown, unless the Cursive axis is set to 0.

The release also adds ı to Stylistic Set 04 (Simplified Mono ‘i’) and DŽ + DZ to Stylistic Set 08 (No-serif ‘L‘ & ‘Z’).

This release closes #59 and #411 – see issues for full details.

v1.071 – Improve fi & ffi ligatures; clean up ligature metadata

This release is a relatively small update that:

• Matches fi and ffi ligature widths to the non-ligated sequences they replace, in order to precisely maintain line lengths between family styles (closes #431).
• Improves fi and ffi ligature shaping generally.
• Removes unnecessary ligature data from built fonts, such as undesired ligatures (ff, fl, ffl) and unused ligature variants (fi.mono, ffi.italic, etc).
• Corresponds to added ligature carets in sources (closes #310).

v1.070 – Fix printing issues in static TTFs; correct regression in Code font metadata for Windows

This release includes fonts which avoid any component nesting or transformations in TTF fonts, in order to avoid issues in older text layout engines, especially commonly used in home & commercial printers (issue #412).

It also corrects a regression in the Rec Mono Code fonts, wherein fonts were missing metadata classification as monospace fonts (introduced with the addition of Powerline glyphs in release 1.066).

1.069 – improved open/close punctuation

This is a patch release. It has decomposed open/close punctuation including () {} [] <> to improve vertical alignment in certain rendering contexts. Put more simply, the closing punctuation are expanded outlines, rather than simply using opening punctuation as components, turned 180°.

Will hopefully close #297.

1.068 – Enhancements for code: new ligatures, wavier ~, improved && ligatures

This release adds several improvements, mostly for code.

Adds new ligatures

Adds new code ligatures for the following:

<> <=> <<= >>= |= !~ =~ |> /= <|> <| <*> 
<* <$> <+> =<< -< >- -<< >>- <<- <<~

Closes #346 and #305.

Makes less/greater symbols more vertically symmetrical for better vertical alignment

Also brings these improvements along to less/greater-based code ligatures, like =>.

Update: still needs a few adjustments to fully close #297 (some open/closing punctuation is slightly misaligned on Windows). This will be fixed in the next release.

Improves ampersand ligatures

The ligatures for && and &&& now have better interior spacing along the bottom “connections.” Closes #276.

Wavier ASCII tilde

The ~ is now wavier, to more clearly be disambiguated from - and –, etc. The combining tilde on characters like ñ remains unchanged. Closes #301.

Fixed ∏

The product character, ∏, was previous only cap-height. It has been adjusted to descend past the baseline, as it should. Closes #410.

1.066 – Design details + PowerLine glyphs in Code fonts

These is a relatively small release which tweaks just a few design details:

• Slightly improved shaping of the ampersand in Linear Light–ExtraBold styles
• Subtle improvements to kerning & spacing in a few characters

This has one new feature: Code fonts now include PowerLine symbols, useful for some Terminal themes (thanks to @crisrhernandez for his excellent contributions on these). These will probably evolve a little further, but if you are a PowerLine shell fan, this will make Rec Mono for Code work for you!

UPDATE, Nov 27, 2020: The Recursive Code fonts had incorrect stylistic sets applied. This has been fixed and updated in the current zip download. The default @ symbol has also been changed to the simplified version.

1.065 – Several design detail refinements

This release changes basically no functionality from before, but improves several small design details:

• In Sans styles, the uppercase W is slightly wider, and its middle point reaches up to the cap height, to look better in all-caps settings.
• Arrowheads are slightly meatier (meteor?) to better balance with arrow stems, especially in code ligatures.
• The lowercase q now has an outstroke/tail in Italic/Cursive styles. This not only looks nice, but may help to further disambiguate it from the p for some readers. (You could, for example, use the variable font with CRSV=1 and ss07 for a possibly-more-legible alphabet.)

1.064 – Adds Stylistic Set 7 to simplify italic diagonal characters

Do you like scripty italics, but find that round cursive versions of k w x y z disrupt your reading? This release adds a stylistic set for you, which allows you to control that behavior. This is probably most useful in Mono styles for code, but works across Sans styles as well.

NOTES

• This release moves a few other stylistic sets around to fit the Simplified italic diagonals in ss07. Please refer to the chart below (also in the project README) for details.
• If you intend to use this update in code editors, you may wish to check out the Recursive Code Config repo, which allows you to “freeze” in your preferred font options to make fonts that are ready-to-use in your favorite terminals & editors
• In the variable font, a Cursive axis value of 1 will still override the ss07 feature.

1.063 – Improved metrics for ligatures in Rec Mono for Code

Closes #369, which showed that code ligatures were rendering improperly in the NetBeans code editor.

There are no other changes from version 1.062.

1.062 – Fix positioning of zero numerator for ss10

If stylistic set 10 was on, the zero numerator was incorrectly sitting in the denominator position. This fixes that.

After working with fractions a fair bit to make the animation below, I am pretty confident everything is now working as expected!