23

Mac OS 10.6 (a.k.a. Snow Leopard) includes a pretty new font called Menlo that supersedes Monaco as the default monospaced font.

I'd like to petition the overflowers to include it right after Consolas in the font-family for code on Stackoverflow.com.

Improve this question
3
  • Before Consolas would be better. That way Mac users will get it first, even if they have Consolas installed, and everyone else will never have to know.
    – Quinn Taylor
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 8:00
  • @Quinn Taylor: As a Mac user in love with Consolas. Please no.
    – Chealion
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 19:14
  • @Jeff: I just came looking for this post as I noticed that the fonts had changed this morning... looks good! perhaps a bit geneva-like (taller and less broad than the monaco family), but it still looks nice on OSX.
    – Ether
    Commented Mar 18, 2010 at 15:24

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6

I think that Menlo should probably be placed before Consolas. The reasoning I have here is that many of us who are using the Trilogy from Macs probably have Microsoft Office installed -- and if we have 2008, we have the Microsoft "C" fonts.

Consolas does, admittedly, look really good on a Mac (I use it in XCode; I wasn't even aware that I got this new Menlo font when I upgraded until just now), but if you really want to give Mac users the best Mac experience, I would consider putting Menlo before Consolas in the chain, as it is highly unlikely that any Windows or Linux user will have it.

Improve this answer
4
  • 7
    Consolas is THE BEST! THE BEST! goo.gl/G30L
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:27
  • 3
    Consolas is the BESTEST!
    – o.k.w
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:29
  • 6
    Don't get me wrong, I love me some Consolas. But other Mac users may disagree with me and prefer Menlo. I'm looking out for their best interests. :) Also ... I thought we frowned on URL shorteners around these parts. ;-)
    – John Rudy
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:39
  • jeff is in the frowning exception list :P
    – o.k.w
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:58
6

Not a Mac user but I went looking for a preview of the Menlo font.

Here's one:

Menlo vs Sans Mono

Image source:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/06/font-changes-coming-to-mac-os-x-snow-leopard.ars
http://typophile.com/files/menlovsdejavusansmono_6131.png

Update:

Upon seeing more comments on Menlo vs Consolas, I found this article which compared both. Here's a visual comparison, courtesy of http://blog.chalitnc.com/2009/09/20/menlo-vs-consolas/

Menlo vs Consolas http://blog.chalitnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/menlo_vs_consolas.jpg

Improve this answer
3
  • 4
    Give credit typophile.com/node/58625
    – Josh Lee
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:20
  • @jleedev, you got me there. Added :)
    – o.k.w
    Commented Mar 11, 2010 at 4:29
  • 1
    Proven: consolas is magnificent
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Mar 18, 2010 at 6:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .