N.B. This is a fork of the Hasklig repository

SemanticCode – Ligatures for code

Inspired by the excellent Hasklig font, SemanticCode is a modification of Hasklig (and by extension, Source Code Pro) to cover ligatures for a variety of programming languages.

The main idea is to substitute operators which have a multi-character representation, such as != and ->, with more readable equivalents that have the same semantic meaning, and the same width. For example, in languages where != represents 'not equal' we show a glyph corresponding to a slashed equal sign that is two characters wide. The benefits of these substitutions are most noticible in languages such as Haskell which have many mathematical operators, e.g. => -< >>=.

The goals of SemanticCode differ slightly from Hasklig in two ways. Firstly, versions of the font are available for different programming languages, each with a set of ligatures defined that is intended to correspond with common operator usage in that programming language. Secondly, the ligatures themselves are intended to correspond more closely to the semantic meaning of the operator than the multi-character representation. For example, in the SemanticHaskell variant SemanticCode has a glyph for /= with the slash centred, whereas the Hasklig glyph has the slash toward the left, as in the multi-character representation.

Download SemanticCode Font Family

Examples

Not available yet

TODO

• add more programming languages (pull requests welcome)
• add proper <= and >= glyphs
• fix the discrepancy between the glyphs for <|> and <|, |>

Release notes

• v2.2
  • The entire build system is now written in python
  • Build system improvements means each variant is called Semantic<Language>
  • Added MATLAB with == and ~= glyphs
• v2.1
  • Initial version with Javascript and Haskell variants
  • Javascript: Basic support for common non-assignment operators
  • Haskell: As Hasklig, except the slash for /= is centred, and === has three strokes

Currently implemented symbols

Haskell

*** ::: === ==> =<< >=> >>= >>> >>- ->> -<< <*> <|> <$> <=> <=< <-> <+> <<< ... +++ *> \\ || |> :: == => !! >> >- -> -< <* <> <| <- << .. ++ /=

Javascript

=== !== >>> <<< || == => != >> << ++

MATLAB

== ~=

Building the fonts from source

Requirements

The build system requires Python, and is tested with version 2.7.

To build the binary font files from source, you need to have installed the Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType (AFDKO). The AFDKO tools are widely used for font development today, and are part of most font editor applications.

Some SVG glyphs are inserted into the fonts using Python FontTools, and the build system needs dill

Configure

To configure the build, use configure.py, suppying the desired options.

The repository only includes so-called master weights of the fonts (effectively extralight and black). The shapes of the weights in between these extremities are calculated by makeInstancesUFO supplied with .designspace files. This needs to be done initally, and only needs to be repeated when new glyphs are added to the master fonts. The configure script automatically makes the instances if one of the required font.ufo directories are missing, and if any glyphs have been added the -bi option forces a rebuild.

By default the configure script enables all supported languages, in the future options for controlling enabled languages will be added.

Building

Once the confugure script has been run, use build.py to build the fonts.

Credits

Original idea, design and implementation of code ligatures by Ian Tuomi 2014-2015. This typeface extends Source Code Pro with ligatures.