A New Font for Smalltalk Coding or “Will Bookerly Be Loverly?”

Bookerly was designed for easier reading and reduced eyestrain.  You may have seen this font recently installed on your Kindle or Kindle app if you use it.

This sounds like it might be a good candidate for Smalltalk code editing—let’s try it out!

Note that this text is in the Bookerly font.  Bonus points for the reader if they get the semi-obscure references in italics!

Bookerly for Editing (“far away from the cold night air”)

I found a TrueType Bookerly font and installed it on my Windows 7 platform. I then went to the editor page of the settings tool in Cincom^® VisualWorks^® and “put “bookerly” (sans quotes) at the beginning of “Font Name:”, bumped the size up a little and pressed the apply button.

I now had Bookerly as my code-editing font. (Note that this will work for the refactory browser in Cincom^® ObjectStudio^® just as well.)

You can verify the font you are using by inspecting this:

Screen default defaultFontPolicy findFont: Refactory.Browser.SourceCodeTheme legacyStyle default fontDescription

… and look at the name instance variable.

Note that I went through a few iterations when verifying the new font, and an OS restart and image restart may be required if it is not showing up for you.

Editing (“in one enormous chair”) or, So How Is It?

My first impression is “crisp.”  The letters are very distinct and readable, and it seems to render a good code-editing experience.  It’s almost like putting on glasses that make your vision just a little sharper.

So my initial impression is positive.  I am going to try using it and comparing it to see if it becomes my “go-to font” for Smalltalk editing.

Let me know your impressions or favorite fonts!

Please send feedback to Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager, Arden Thomas (athomas@cincom.com).