Launchpad monospace font is too thin and hard to read

[Daniel van Vugt]

Launchpad monospace font is too thin and hard to read on a white background. This seems to be a relatively recent change. Perhaps related to the fix for bug 2021576?

If the default weight isn't going to be changed then can you suggest a way for users to work around it? Launchpad seems to ignore both the browser and shell's monospace font preferences.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I'm using 4K at scale 200%, BTW. The problem doesn't seem to be so bad at 2K 100% when that should look practically the same. I'm starting to think our font rendering doesn't scale the weight proportionally to the display scale. But still, this is a recent regression in Launchpad itself.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Subscribed @petermakowski - could you weigh in on this?

[Peter Makowski (petermakowski)]

Launchpad is now using the same Ubuntu Mono variable font that's used on the Vanilla Framework website: https://vanillaframework.io/

It is indeed slightly thinner, but the main issue seems to be due to us using a very small font size on launchpad.

This should no longer be an issue as soon as the following is released:
https://code.launchpad.net/~petermakowski/launchpad/+git/launchpad/+merge/444157

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It's not the font size that's the problem, I can change that myself. It's the thin font weight on a white background that is causing me eye strain. And I spend multiple hours a day reading Launchpad bugs so this is quite a problem. Can you provide a workaround so I can change the font weight I see in Launchpad?

[Peter Makowski (petermakowski)]

I created 2 custom styles that you could use via stylus Firefox/Chrome extension for you to choose from.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us

- font-weight of 500: https://userstyles.world/style/10230/launchpad-net-font-weight
- original monospace font: https://userstyles.world/style/10229/launchpad-net-monospace

I am now on leave until next week, but once I'm back I'll look into this more. We might even need to re-think the use of Ubuntu Mono font on launchpad if it's causing people significant trouble (or at least delay enabling it until we can give people an option).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Nice, thanks! I'm finding a weight of 440-450 looks best (and matches the variable-width font weight).

[Sameer Sharma (sameersharma2006)]

Is This Fixed ?? , the font size creates a really awful UI to work on.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

No, not fixed. Comment #6 was just about the workaround suggested in comment #5.

[Peter Makowski (petermakowski)]

Would you mind sharing a screenshot demonstrating the problem, I'd like to understand it a bit better. Also - is this in Firefox or Chrome?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The bug is the same in Chrome and Firefox. Screenshot attached.

I'm using a 4K monitor at 200% and I think at 400 nits. The new font gets drowned out by the white background. Seems like the thinness of the font is changing its intended colour from black to more of a grey. Using the workaround in comment #5 fixes the issue although a little too much. I find weight 440 is nice.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I've just deployed Peter's previous change, which increases the base font size a bit. https://code.launchpad.net/~petermakowski/launchpad/+git/launchpad/+merge/444621 is in flight to darken the colour.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Though Peter, I notice one weird thing is that bug descriptions and comments have a different font size - you can see that on this bug. Is that intentional?

[Peter Makowski (petermakowski)]

Good spot. Not intentional, seems like some other styles overwrite the base font size here.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I've deployed Peter's latest changes. Daniel, does this seem better to you now? (I certainly prefer it.)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I think it's an improvement but not there yet. See the attached screenshot without and then with the workaround (forcing weight to 440). I think the workaround is still required to match the weight of the variable width font, and to be more readable.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It would potentially make everyone happy if the site didn't enforce a font family for monospace (or Sans for that matter). Then custom browser configs would be honoured.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Remember light is additive in two dimensions and black and white are not treated equally in vision. According to standard gamma curves, white pixels have roughly square of the visual influence that black pixels do.

[Sameer Sharma (sameersharma2006)]

Agree with daniel it should be upon user to select custom font, i am myself forcing ubuntu font with firefox settings at a size of 28 ! to properly use launchpad.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

See also bug 2030840.

[Peter Makowski (petermakowski)]

It might be best to raise this in the Ubuntu Mono font repository instead as it's an issue with the font and not launchpad itself.

https://github.com/canonical/ubuntumono-fonts/issues