Shields: PNG (raster) font does not have enough letter spacing

[boaz-codota]

Are you experiencing an issue with...

• [X] [shields.io](https://shields.io/#/)
• [ ] My own instance
• [ ] [badge-maker NPM package](https://www.npmjs.com/package/badge-maker)

:beetle: Description

The numbers inside the raster.shields.io social badge (png version) have letter spacing that is too small, making the text not readable.

:link: Link to the badge

:bulb: Possible Solution

Increase letter spacing

[calebcartwright]

Thanks for the report @boaz-codota! We're in the process of rewriting our rasterization proxy which produces the png badges, and while the pngs are always going to be less pixel-perfect than the svgs, I do think you can expect to see an improvement once we're done (which should be fairly soon).

Here's a screen grab of what your badge looks like with the new version (sorry for the blur, taken from my local):

[boaz-codota]

Can't wait, we love the product in https://tabnine.com/ and use it to display social information in Jetbrains Marketplace and VSCode Marketplace

[chris48s]

@boaz-codota Out of interest, what's your use-case for using raster badges in preference to SVG? We know we still serve a lot of PNGs but we don't really have a great handle on where and why they are used over SVG.

[boaz-codota]

I'm glad you asked! We embed those badges in our Jetbrains plugin page.
While the web version renders the svgs perfectly: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/12798-tabnine-ai-autocomplete-javascript-c-java-python-ruby-rust-go-php--

The IDE cannot render SVGs at all (didn't save a pic of it, but trust me on that one). The PNG version on the other hand works perfectly: