Simplenote-electron: Add a font option for the editor, and other note content

[davewhitley]

I can see how this might be useful. We could at least add a monospace font option, but I think 3 font options would "feel" better.

• Default
• Monospace
• Serif?

I think the font option should apply to note content, not UI. This would mean that only the note editor and the note list would have the font change. Everything else would stay system fonts.

[JokerQyou]

Although I think the ultimate solution to this would be allowing users to select any font installed on their computer, starting from basic font configuration might be a good idea. Currently CJK characters looks awful in Simplenote.

Here is how it looks like when I have default font size:

And here is how it looks like when I manually set it bigger:

Basically the only acceptable font rendering is the menu text. ASCII characters are still good, though.

[kriskarkoski]

Monospace or alternative font options requested by a user in #2711658-t

[JeffByers]

For me, the lack of a mono-spaced or non-proportional font such as Courier New, or Consolas on all Simplenote supported platforms is a deal breaker, it's a requirement. I have many notes with column aligned table data, which without the right font, simply does not line up.

[Essayoh]

Requested by a customer in #2792368-t

[iamlazynic]

Really want a mono-space option :+1:

[nemonein]

I hope you do something for Korean users.

All Korean letters are displayed as squares.
Those are the notes I created on other platforms.(Android or Windows)

It's snap installed Simplenote 1.0.8 on (K)Ubuntu 17.04.

[gerv]

I would expect that to be because the hard-coded font doesn't have Korean glyphs. So yes, this bug would fix that, as would implementing some sort of fallback mechanism (e.g. a set of fonts in CSS).

[davewhitley]

@nemonein @gerv We don't use any custom fonts, and we only use system fonts. It should fallback to a font on your computer with the correct glyphs in your language.

See our font-stack here: https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron/blob/master/scss/variables.scss#L30

I would open this as a separate issue. @nemonein do you mind opening a separate issue please?

[nemonein]

@drw158 Thanks for your replay.
I would open a new issue, but I want to make sure something.
I'm not a programmer, so I can't read the codes well.

I just saw the codes you linked, but I'm not sure exactly what font is used for Ubuntu flavours.
Is it sans? or Ubuntu?

If it's Ubuntu, it does not have Korean glyphs.
If it's sans, it is normally matched to Ubuntu fonts in Ubuntu, which results in the same consequences(No Korean fonts).

I don't think Simplenote uses 'sans' because I manually matched 'sans' with Korean font.

$ fc-match sans
NanumBarunGothic.ttf: "나눔바른고딕" "Regular"

NanumBarunGothic is Korean font, which also has Latin characters.

[davewhitley]

@nemonein Sure, no problem.

Simplenote will try to load the fonts in a sequence from left to right. For example, it will try to find the first font, "-apple-system", and if it doesn't find it, it will look for the next font in the list, "BlinkMacSystemFont". Since your computer has the "Ubuntu" font, it loads that one.

[gerv]

But does electron do font substitution if a glyph isn't found, like a browser does? If not, then this could be a problem, because the first font found will be used, and if it doesn't have the right glyphs, you are outta luck.

[davewhitley]

Let's create a new issue and discuss further.

[nemonein]

@drw158 @gerv I opened a new issue. #561

[kylehotchkiss]

Monospace font would be very nice. My usecase: using as decorators/headlines like I do in my code editor 🙃

Source code pro would be awesome / is open source.

[silmerusse]

As a workaround, especially for CJK users, edit Simplenoteresourcesappdistapp.js. Search the font style string (-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", "Roboto", "Oxygen-Sans", "Ubuntu", "Cantarell", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;), and add or replace with your custom font name, for example 'Microsoft YaHei' .

[subodhpareek18]

Would suggest the following open source options for Monospace:

https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode (ligatures!!)

---

http://madmalik.github.io/mononoki/

[w3sip]

Lack of monospace font option is pretty much the only thing preventing me from abandoning Evernote and going with Simplenote instead.

[mizejewski]

Please add a monospace font option. This is definitely a dealbreaker and keeps me using https://laverna.cc/ even though I prefer other features of Simplenote.

[valhristov]

I started to use Simplenote today and I like it a lot so far. I just found that I can create monospaced inline and multiline blocks with markdown, but having all monospaced text in the editor would be even more awesome.

[jmillr]

I would like to join the chorus of voices requesting a mono-spaced option. I, too, would like to migrate my notes from Evernote to Simplenote, but I can't have any 'smart-quotes' messing up my terminal commands!!! Thanks, in advance, if you implement this. [Using MacOS X.]

[colinhowells]

Big fan of Font Bureau's Input Mono

Not sure what the license + payment situation would be for inclusion in an app, though

[Abaxial]

Yes please, am very much looking forward to a monospaced option.

[katinthehatsite]

Also, requested by a customer in 1042810-zen

[dadaphl]

YES! please add a monospace option!

I'm using simplenote as a calendar. For every month I display the output of unix cal command. This only works properly with a monospaced font.

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

[juanmeleiro]

Up. I see this issue has been added as an future feature over two years ago. Monospaced fonts are not something to be taken lightly. Monospaced is a matter of mental health.

[louisabraham]

I'm using nvalt on macOS but my ASCII diagrams don't render on my phone :/

[i5o]

Still waiting I guess

[sandymcfadden]

Adding another request from a user here 1576555-zen

[ernstki]

Just an update to @silmerusse's suggestion for 2019…

The assets for the desktop app are now packaged with asar (a tar alternative written in JavaScript). But you can still extract the source files, modify the app's CSS styles, and repackage them with a little bit of effort. For a Linux distribution using the Simplenote .deb package, for example:

# refer to https://stackoverflow.com/a/39373730/785213 if you need
# help setting up your PATH to allow you to run Node packages' CLIs
npm install -g asar

# you will need to give your user permission to modify this directory
cd /opt/Simplenote/resources
sudo setfacl -m u:$USER:rwx .
sudo setfacl -m u:$USER:rw *.asar

# back up the original resource bundle, in case you mess it up
cp app.asar app.asar.factory

# extract the packed resource bundle
asar extract app.asar app

# replace the "-apple-system" font with "Liberation Mono," available
# on most Linux distros, keeping a backup
sed -i.bak s'/-apple-system/Liberation Mono/g' app/dist/main.*.css

# optionally, re-pack resource bundle and remove the (temporary) 'app' dir.
# asar pack app app.asar && rm -rf app

# run Simplenote!
simplenote

The -i option to sed is non-standard, so on a Mac, you will probably need a space between the -i and the .bak parts.

This is a very blunt approach that replaces _all_ UI fonts with a monospace family, but if you're up for it, you could theoretically target .note-detail-textarea separately from .note-detail-markdown in the same CSS file.

These steps, unfortunately, will need to be repeated after every Simplenote update.

[z5h]

+1 for monospace editor code.

[iamgabrielma]

Requested as well in 1857067-zen

[iamgabrielma]

Another request on 1867947-zen

[hanchang]

Another +1 for supporting monospaced fonts please, would immediately switch from Evernote to Simplenote as soon as this is possible!

What are the steps required to do so, in case some intrepid soul wants to take a shot at this?

[fhamm]

Please add this feature!

[reginabally]

Received another request on 1966461-zen.

[hoishing]

+ 1 for monospace. I saw the comments from an old post that it would add monospace support soon, don't know why it didn't implement it till now..

btw, thanks @ernstki for the work around, it works fine for me

[iamgabrielma]

2041156-zen

[lcb931023]

+1 for monospace!

[amirography]

+1 for custom font option (or styling in general)

[kerrypnx]

+1 for custom font option (or styling in general)

[iamgabrielma]

Requested on 2193257-zen

I am a Chinese writer and the Chinese characters of windows built-in Fonts are so much difficult to read, and I can't change the fonts, which is disappointing and stops me from keeping using Simplenote on Windows...

[dhry]

+1 for custom font option. Monospace would be nice, but I'd prefer instead to be allowed to use any font installed on my desktop.

[belcherj]

Thanks! I’ve added this to our feature requests!

[cramdesign]

+1 for Monospace. It may seem minor but it's a requirement for how I organize notes.

[zhdanjj]

+1 for Monospace

[positvt]

+1 for Monospace, please.
Thank you!

[lost2]

+1 for Monospace, please.
Thank you!

[erolsk8]

+1 for Monospace

[ottov1]

+1 for Monospace. Thanks!

[spenat28]

Why was this removed from milestone? Will this be an option in near future?
It’s really needed to have monospaced option at least.

[codebykat]

Hi @spenat28, it was removed from the "Future" milestone because we have deprecated that milestone. Everything not in a specific version milestone is on our radar but not specifically slated for an upcoming version.

In other words we've logged the feature request but it is not on our immediate roadmap. Thanks!