dans.blog: Dina Programming Font...

Reading blogs the other day, I came across the Dina Programming Font. I've been testing it out for the past couple of days in Eclipse and so far I really like it.

Over the years I've tried a number of different fonts for my IDE, but I always end up back with Courier New—mainly because it's familiar. However, I've been able to use the Dina font at 8pt and it retains it's readability very well at 1028x768. Lowering the point size while not adding strain for my eyes, allows me to see more code on the page w/less scrolling. Since I have carpal tunnel, anything that reduces mouse movement is a welcome change.

Categories: JavaScript, Potpourri, HTML/ColdFusion, Source Code

8 Comments

Ben Nadel
Nov 9, 2006 @ 11:39 AM

I just downloaded it and loaded it up in HomeSite... looks pretty cool. 9pt looked like poop, but the 8pt looks rather nice.

Let's see how it works over the course of the day.

Thanks for the tip :)
charlie griefer
Nov 9, 2006 @ 12:11 PM

dan, have you tried Profont?

http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/

i use it at 9pt which renders even smaller than the Dina font at 8pt.

been using it for a couple of years and love it for all the reasons you mentioned above. small, legible, and allows me to see more code over a single screen.
Joshua Cyr
Nov 9, 2006 @ 1:47 PM

After using it with Dreamweaver my code now looks 20% more geek. That plus my "got coldfusion" shirt on right now and I am just a coding fool. The designers are keeping their distance.
Dan G. Switzer, II
Nov 9, 2006 @ 5:16 PM

Charlie,

Thanks for the pointer to Profont. It's a little *too* small for me at 9pt and it looks goofy using the TTF if I make it a little bigger.

I'll test it out for a day or two and see if I can get used to it. I just find the thickness of Dina does cause strain on my eyes.
Josh
Nov 9, 2006 @ 6:40 PM

I'm currently testing out Consolas, which comes with Office 2k7 and Vista. It's pretty decent.
Dan G. Switzer, II
Nov 9, 2006 @ 7:02 PM

Looks like you can download Consolas from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa...
tiebob
Jun 14, 2007 @ 12:38 AM

After trying ConSolas, I used to use Dina Font for coding...
Ben Nadel
Oct 25, 2007 @ 7:45 AM

I just used this link on another blog comment, but I thought I would stop here and say that I have been using Dina since reading this blog post last year and I love it! Best programming font I have used.

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