Show HN: Xenia – A monospaced font built with a custom Python engine

I'm an engineer who spent the last year fixing everything I hated about monofonts (especially that double-story 'a').

I built a custom Python-based procedural engine to generate the weights because I wanted more logical control over the geometry. It currently has 700+ glyphs and deep math support.

Regular weight is free for the community. I'm releasing more weights based on interest.

The 'a' and the 'o' are a bit similar, but all in all I can see myself trying this out. Reminds me a bit of Comic Code and Maple Mono. Thanks for sharing!

There are a few odd things about this post though. Take this as well-intentioned feedback.

- New account. No previous submissions or comments.

- New Github account. No previous activity.

- Mentions custom engine (cool!), but omits any details.

- Calls other mono fonts 'fugly'; refuses to elaborate.

- Releasing based on interest feels like engagement farming. Let me know when it's done. Then I'll judge whether I'm interested.

- Regular weights are free. Implication is that other weights will be paid. That's fine. I'm happy to pay for fonts. But I'm unlikely to try a font in earnest without bold and italics.

Sorry if this comes off as harsh. I wish you the best with this!

I find the "i" quite excruciating to look at.

Also would like to see more examples, say including this deep math.

It's like a dotted version of the false/bottom symbol from logic: ⊥̇

It's just letting you dot your Ts and cross your Is. ;)

EDIT: The joke wasn't that bad. :(

I liked it :3 thought it was funny

Could you share more information on this custom python procedural engine?

Is this related: https://www.paratype.com/fonts/pt/xenia ?

I would suggest making the screenshot with the font at different sizes. They first thing I want is to have an approximation of how it will look at small sizes.

Does it emulate an XBOX 360?

I tried this font out but had issues with the terminal in VS code.

Why do this rather than just using METAFONT/METAPOST/METATYPE1?

It's not very easy to use Metafont and its derivatives to produce a modern TrueType/OpenType font. Even the TeX Gyre fonts use FontForge [0] rather than Metafont.

[0]: https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/tex-gyre/source