Potential weird visual behavior with # symbol

[joshblack]

Hi all! Just wanted to leave a quick note around using # with Plex Mono. Was using it as the font in my editor and noticed a pattern when using multiple # symbols.

With a traditional mono font, multiple # symbols could look like:

However, with Plex Mono it would look like:

This 100% could be intended, however just wanted to bring it up since personally it can cause issues when identifying the # symbol itself.

[inferno986return]

They all seem to render correctly to me. Are you referring to the fact that in IBM Plex Mono's design the hash (#) symbol's horizontal bars don't pass through the two vertical stems?

In that case, leaving more whitespace seems to be a core part of the design as the ampersand (&) and Euro (€) symbols share this approach too.

I'm curious about it too, but then again IBM Plex is designed to be distinctive after all.

[joshblack]

@inferno986return agreed that they all render correctly! And I think your point in:

Are you referring to the fact that in IBM Plex Mono's design the hash (#) symbol's horizontal bars don't pass through the two vertical stems?

Is definitely what I'm curious about.

[inferno986return]

I took the liberty of opening up Inkscape and doing a mini-sample. It's definitely a unique trait of IBM Plex Mono. What is also interesting is how the forward slash (/) used on the fractions and percentage is broken up too.

[mjabbink]

@joshblack Is it common to have that many # in a row? The designs very intentional but certainly did not take into account having over repeated one after another. It is a unique glyph within Mono but we can certainly have an alternative in a future release.

[robb]

FWIW, it is a common syntax in Markdown to indicate the level of a heading

# Level 1 Heading
## Level 2 Heading
### Level 3 Heading
#### Level 4 Heading
##### Level 5 Heading

While alternative syntax exists for heading levels 1 & 2, this is the only available syntax for 3 and above.

I think it would be great if Mono could detect these sequences and offer maybe a smaller # glyph with connected horizontal bars? The current solution of a large glyphs with a gapped bar makes it hard to count the number of #s at a glance.