width of all glyphs changed from the 2011 version of the font

[nuanjanP]

Hi.

I noticed that this new version (as of 2023) of Ubuntu Mono has the width of glyphs changed from exactly 500 EM units (in a 1000 EM unit box) to 560 EM units, which unfortunately breaks compatibility with using the font with other CJKV fonts.

Glyphs in CJKV fonts are usually "full width" (1000 EM units in a 1000 EM unit box), so an exactly "half width" latin-greek-cyrillic (LGC) font plays very nicely when trying to align text which also contains CJKV characters. As far as I know, currently there are only a few monospace fonts with truly half width LGC glyphs, and almost none of them has active development. (The exception being Iosevka, but design-wise there are situations I prefer Ubuntu Mono more.)

Seeing Ubuntu Mono is now getting more weights (personally the Light weight is a very helpful addition), and perhaps a chance to support more glyphs originally absent (like some of the ones used in Pinyin transliteration, such as ǒ), this issue of width change is quite disappointing, at least to me and perhaps to those looking for an alternative to Iosevka (and the original Inconsolata) for "truly half width" LGC fonts.

[djrrb]

To explain the change: Ubuntu Mono was scaled to match the rest of the Ubuntu family, resulting in better interoperability between the two. (While Iosevka is a relatively condensed design that fits comfortably in a 500-unit width, UbuntuMono is not, and the previous version appeared smaller than Ubuntu and most other LGC fonts.)

I agree that CJK-compatibility is a good use case for monospace fonts on 500-unit widths. In the short term, I believe it would be fairly straightforward to create a fork or custom version of UbuntuMono where the font is scaled back to its original size (which could be done either by scaling all of the outlines, or by increasing the UPM from 1000 to 1120, which is double the new 560-unit width).

In the long term, this could be a reason to consider a width axis for UbuntuMono like the one that now exists for Ubuntu, which would allow UbuntuMono to condense down to a 500-unit CJKV-compatible width without needing to also shrink vertically.

[nuanjanP]

Thank you for the very clear explanation and suggestion. :)

[uRohan]

Apologies for jumping in with a different question, but I'm wondering why Ubuntu Mono font has so small/short U+002D - HYPHEN-MINUS character (for me as a regular user)? I don't know, maybe it isn't intended, but I'm using it as a programming font.

I appreciate your work and love the font. Thanks!

[djrrb]

thanks @uRohan! if you don’t mind, I’ll move this to its own issue

[uRohan]

Yes, sure.