MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Mono ss06 causing characters to overlay on each other

[TehPers]

🗹 Requirements

• I have searched the issues for my issue and found nothing related and/or helpful
• I have searched the FAQ for help
• I have searched the Wiki for help

🎯 Subject of the issue

Experienced behavior:

When enabling ss06 on MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Mono, characters after consecutive #s end up overlayed with the #s:

I was able to confirm that MonaspiceNe Nerd Font and MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Propo have the correct behavior.

Screenshot is from vscode, but I was able to reproduce the issue in Windows Terminal as well:

Expected behavior:

The same behavior as Monaspace Neon/MonaspiceNe Nerd Font/MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Propo:

For comparison, with ss06 disabled:

Example symbols:

The main symbol I've noticed affected is #. I haven't noticed any others, but as far as I know, ss06 only affects #.

###$$$$

🔧 Your Setup

• Which font are you using (e.g. Anonymice Powerline Nerd Font Complete.ttf)?
  • MonaspiceNeNerdFontMono-*.otf - as far as I can tell, affects all variants of it. Confirmed with Light and Regular at least
• Where did you get the file from (download link, self patched, source downloaded from link...)
  • Releases page (v3.1.1) - Monaspace.zip, also tested Monaspace.tar.xz
• Which terminal emulator are you using (e.g. iterm2, urxvt, gnome, konsole)?
  • Windows Terminal, behavior also observed in vscode
• Are you using OS X, Linux or Windows? And which specific version or distribution?
  • Windows 11 Pro 22H2

★ Screenshots (Optional)

settings.json for Windows Terminal:

Copyable settings:

{
    "font": {
        "face": "MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Mono",
        "features": {
            "calt": 1,
            "liga": 1,
            "ss03": 1,
            "ss06": 1,
            "ss08": 1
        }
    }
}

[Finii]

Thanks for reporting with very good details!
And sorry to hear of your problem.

I believe I instantly know from your description what the problem is:
Unlike all (?) other fonts that have programming ligatures Monaspace uses a different and problematic approach to implement these. I already commented on that fact upstream [1].

The problem I see is that they would need to invest a considerable amount of time to 'fix' the ligatures; it is unclear for me if they will ever get the time for that. The ligs work, somehow, with some limitations, so why spend time and money ...

Let me think a bit about the issue and if there is any generic way we can avoid the problem.
Feel free (you are welcome to) ping me again if I forget to answer within a week or so.

P.S. Do you not see [1a] in VScode? With the non-NerdFontMono patched versions or the unpatched one?

[1a] https://www.github.com/githubnext/monaspace/issues/115
[1b] https://www.github.com/githubnext/monaspace/issues/132

Links without backlink as this Issue is not really helpful over there

[TehPers]

For 1a, I notice the same behavior that's in that issue when using the non-NFM patched version, so that's definitely an issue with Monaspace. I do notice that the behavior is a bit different with the NFM variant though. To fully explain the issue (though this is not a NFM issue, but there are differences between the two variants):

With non-NFM (normal Monaspace Neon), while the cursor appears after the arrow, in reality the cursor is between the = and > characters, just not visually:

When pressing the right arrow key, you actually need to press it twice to pass through the =>, one to go past the = and the other to go past the >, though the cursor visually stays at the end of the line here.

With the NFM patched version (MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Mono), while the behavior is almost entirely the same, the difference is that the cursor is now stuck in the middle of the two characters:

As for the behavior noted in this issue, I've only noticed that behavior with the NFM variants of the fonts.

If this issue can't be solved from the Nerd Font side, feel free to close the issue. This does seem like an issue with Monaspace itself at the very least.

Also, just tested with MonaspiceNe Nerd Font (non-Mono) and it has the same behavior as Monaspace (non-NF)

[TehPers]

Adding more context, looks like this happens with other ligatures as well. For example, from ss03, the ligature for <!-- seems to have a similar issue.

Here's from MonaspiceNe Nerd Font (Monaspace Neon looks the same as this):

Here's from MonaspiceNe Nerd Font Mono:

[Finii]

Well, that all is the problem because Monaspace's idea of how to create the ligs.
I wonder how much work it really is and if I should just change the ligs in Glyph3 and upload a PR at the Monaspace repo.
But then, the repo seems ... not watched by anyone at the moment. Maybe we should try to reach someone and clarify the state.
I guess the Ligs could be fixed within some few days 🤔

But then, why should I invest time there, I can not fix all and everything. I already now have no time left.

[TehPers]

To be clear - I'm not saying that it needs to be fixed here. Just wanted to report it as an issue, feel free to close as "wont fix" if you feel like it falls into Monaspace's domain to fix.

[Finii]

It does indeed.
Well, in some exceptional circumstances we fix bug in sourcefonts locally here, like for example

• ComicShanns: Fix carons #1546

(which is still not fixed upstream despite the pending PR that they even said they will merge).

I mark this as wontfix as you suggested but keep it open to not forget it. Maybe I have to attend some boring meeting and can work on it then 😬

[Finii]

@allcontributors please add @TehPers for bug

[allcontributors]

@Finii

I've put up a pull request to add @TehPers! 🎉