Enable IBM Plex Sans stylistic alternates: dotted zero, simple a/g - #5654
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norman-abramovitz merged 1 commit intoJul 19, 2026
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Enable IBM Plex Sans's salt feature interface-wide: dotted zero, single-storey a, simple g. The dotted zero disambiguates 0 from O without colliding with the Nordic vowel o-slash the way the slashed-zero `zero` feature would - text like Danish or Norwegian keeps its slash meaning one thing and the zero's dot meaning another. That collision is why salt was chosen over zero. The vendored Plex Sans files could not render any of this: they were Google Fonts pipeline subsets, which strip the zero, salt and ss features a family ships. The seven faces are re-vendored from IBM's own release (plex-sans 1.1.0), subset to the same latin range with every OpenType layout feature kept (fontTools pyftsubset, about 5KB more per face). Plex Mono is untouched - salt is an interface-face decision, and the mono files carry no alternates. Verified in the running app: body computes font-feature-settings "salt"; 0O renders dotted against round, a and g single-storey, and o-slash stays visibly distinct from the zero.
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The interface now renders Plex's
saltalternates: a dotted zero, single-storey a, and simple g. The dotted zero separates 0 from O without colliding with ø/Ø — a slashed zero (thezerofeature) reads as the Nordic vowel in Danish/Norwegian text, which is whysaltwas chosen overzero.The previously vendored files couldn't render any alternate: they were Google-Fonts-pipeline subsets, which strip the
zero/salt/ssfeatures a family ships (verified with fontTools — the old files carried no GSUB substitution features at all). The seven faces are re-vendored from IBM's plex-sans 1.1.0 release, subset to the same latin range with all layout features kept; about 5KB heavier per face. Plex Mono is unchanged.Verified live: body computes
font-feature-settings: "salt", and 0O renders dotted against round, a and g single-storey, and ø stays visibly distinct from the zero. Follows #5641; the operator font-selection work (#5640) measures these same features per family.