Comment 12 for bug 727733

On 08/03/11 08:14, Paul Sladen wrote:
> The really BIG question is, if we could make a small change to the
> default TypoGap line-spacing of the proportional (which is perhaps a
> little) tight and have a more coherent result across the board, would we
> do that at this stage?

I think the TypoLineGap of the proportional fonts should really not be changed now unless there is a VERY good reason to do so. In the vast majority of the applications that use the proportional fonts the interline spacing will be defined by the user in terms of leading relative to the point size. In applications that do not have user defined leading by default, the interline spacing (which TypoLineGap is part) should be set to at least a value that will clear the vertical design box, which it does.

The question here surely is one of scale.

We have offered two scales of the monospaced and it appears that neither has been overwhelmingly endorsed by the users in the community. So should we be looking at developing another trial version for the community to try out?

Looking at the comparative sizes of the fonts in the attached 100pt PDF, the Ubuntu 500 is by far the smallest. If we abandon the neat 12pich @ 12pt (2:1) solution that this 500 version gives and go back to our original 560 width version, should we look at making some other compromises to the design size relative to the Regular Sans (perhaps making the caps about 12% - 13% smaller as is the case with Lucida) so that the vertical design box stays with the em size (1000) for terminal style use? Or alternatively abandon the vertical em limitation altogether (as in DejaVuSansMono) and make the vertical rules of the box forms overly big so that they join no matter what application may be using them?
Many monospaced typefaces do not have related proportional designs, probably because it is so difficult to create a good relationship between them, but I do think we are close to making UbuntuMono an excellent addition to the Ubuntu font family.

So to recap , the decision required for the scaling is one of the following:
1. Use the 500 width version which gives an excellent design relationship with the proportional fonts, albeit at a smaller scale.
2. Go back to the 560 width version which gives a better size relationship to the proportional fonts but is outside the vertical em.
3. Go back to the 560 width version and modify the larger glyphs (including reducing the capital size) to restrict the vertical size to the em, making the design less compatible with the proportional fonts.

Suggestions welcome!