Per-language font settings

[jassielof]

Body

What are you proposing?

Extend the existing languages configuration block to support buffer/editor font settings on a per-language basis, specifically buffer_font_family, buffer_font_size, and ligature toggles or even font features. Zed supports some per-language settings like tab_size`, but font-related settings are only configurable globally.

Being set like:

"languages": {
  "Typst": {
    "tab_size": 2,
    "buffer_font_family": "Monaspace Neon",
    "buffer_font_size": 14,
    "buffer_font_features": {
      "calt": true
    }
  },
  "JavaScript": {
    "buffer_font_family": "Monaspace Argon",
    "buffer_font_features": {
      "calt": false
    }
  },
  "SQL": {
    "buffer_font_family": "Berkeley Mono"
  }
}

Could mention a similar approach like VS Code with brackets (to allow the same per language settings to a set of languages), but that's unrelated.

Why does this matter and what it solves?

Different types of languages have their special reading and writing context. For example, markup/typesetting languages (like Typst, LaTeX, AsciiDoc or Markdown) are more prose than code in general, so a humanist or variable-width font (like Monaspace) helps in readability.

In contrast, code focused languages (like Rust, JS, etc.) need a different type of reading.

Some other users might want to disable ligatures in given languages, different sizes, etc. too.

What becomes easier or possible?

Per-language font control/customization.

Are there any examples or context?

VS Code's settings, such as:

"[typst][latex][markdown]": {
  "editor.fontFamily": "Monaspace Neon",
  "editor.fontLigatures": true,
  "editor.fontSize": 14,
  "editor.wordWrap": "bounded"
}

Which applies to Typst, LaTeX and Markdown.

Possible approach

Extend the settings per-language settings to allow font-related settings.

References

• Per-language font family #5246
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/settings#_language-specific-editor-settings
• Feature Request: Allow more generic project and language specific settings #26126: Related, but more generic (?)

[talamus]

I personally would like to use Gentium when writing documentation (Markdown files).

[dkoontz]

Array languages such as APL/BQN/Uiua often have custom fonts to support the specific glyps they are using. Being able to specify "buffer_font_family": "BQN386 Unicode" just for .bqn files would be very useful.