Option to use the old italic version

[n-gao]

Environment

Cascadia Code version number: 2105.24
Application (with version) used to display text: vs code
OS platform and version: Windows 10 20H2
Screen resolution (i.e. 220dpi): 96dpi

Any other software?

Steps to reproduce

The new italic font is hard to read

Expected behavior

I would like to be able to use the old italic font.

Actual behavior

[Dimension4]

This is how my call stacks in log files in vs code look now

[Pecnut]

I like the new italics a lot in general, and it's really nice to have them finally! Thank you @aaronbell! But I would like to suggest that the lowercase 'r' really doesn't look like an 'r' at all if you didn't grow up in a country which teaches that sort of handwriting. With my single data point, cursive handwriting in the UK doesn't use this shape at all (see for example, https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/9e/48/639e48a44e09f2fe8c86abb17e25ed08.jpg), so I find it quite hard to read.

You may totally choose to ignore this comment but I thought you might like to know. I have no idea if a stylistic set might be a solution for this one character, should you be interested in doing so. But no pressure; just for your information. Thanks! :-)

[pstranak-sw]

People in different countries write (draw) letters differently. For example, the new "x" looks like my handwritten "z". I would expect a coding font like Cascadia Code to be universal, if possible.

Right now, half of the letters look like handwritten letters in my country, but the other half look like printed letters. When I see such text, the first impression I get is a broken font where half of the letters failed to render properly. It takes some time to get used to it.

While the previous version looked more mundane, it was consistent. But please, don't take this the wrong way. I like the idea of making the italics prettier, it just needs more work.

[Uxorious]

Isn't an Italics version of the font supposed to be the same font as the normal/bold one.
As it is right now, Italics looks like a completely different (handwritten, non-connected and super hard to read) typeface!
I really miss the old Italics now :-(

[mdtauk]

There was no previous italic version, what you saw was apps faking it by slanting the upright letters.

Perhaps this ask should be an optional Oblique version which could be used (not sure how you would specify italics to use the alternate font?

Maybe the newly added Italic could have a cursive stylistic set, and more traditional italicised glyphs where there are currently loops or a-typical letter shapes. - The lowercase r for instance feels unusual to me, and I am from the UK.

[MOYUtianming]

Hey,it is beautiful for Web or UI , but it is terrible to code ,

I hope you can divide Code font(just for code) and general font(for general use) , for me , I have no objection to using them when I am reading e-books , but when I am coding , I just want a font that can make me read more quickly and clearly.

[TheDecryptor]

Isn't an Italics version of the font supposed to be the same font as the normal/bold one.
As it is right now, Italics looks like a completely different (handwritten, non-connected and super hard to read) typeface!
I really miss the old Italics now :-(

Italic is supposed to be a cursive variant, while Oblique is a slanted version of the normal upright variant

[jmorgan276]

I've seen it referred as "Cascadia Curve" elsewhere which is which is fine since peoples preferences are subjective, but for me the new italics being so different from the normal font is a bit jarring and hard to follow.

Especially if it is referring to longer camel cased type words and phrases.

physicalDeliveryOfficeName
vs

[C1710]

People in different countries write (draw) letters differently. For example, the new "x" looks like my handwritten "z". I would expect a coding font like Cascadia Code to be universal, if possible.

Right now, half of the letters look like handwritten letters in my country, but the other half look like printed letters. When I see such text, the first impression I get is a broken font where half of the letters failed to render properly. It takes some time to get used to it.

While the previous version looked more mundane, it was consistent. But please, don't take this the wrong way. I like the idea of making the italics prettier, it just needs more work.

The new uppercase X actually looks more like the lowercase Greek letter χ.
While I coincidentally found that in the word LATEX (where it would be correct/appropriate to use Chi instead of X), it's usually rather strange...

[LarnuUK]

For note, the new italics cursive style doesn't appear to be too well received over on Stack Overflow, whom changed their default monospaced font to Cascadia Code, for those who have it installed, quite recently.

[todonovan]

Adding another voice asking for an option for the old italics. This has been my favorite programming font, but this change has immediately made it unusable for coding for me. I'm not sure where the trend of cursive in programming fonts originated, but I find they totally defeat the purpose of programming fonts -- which are supposed to be immediately and clearly readable. Cursive is anything but that. Adding another font that is Cascadia Cursive and leaving the mainline font alone seems like a much more reasonable approach.

[benc-uk]

"Argh what has happened to all my comments!!? is my font cache corrupt?" was my first thought.
I lost nearly an hour trying to triage what had gone wrong on my system...

Seriously this is such a huge change to force onto everyone, there needs to be some way to opt into these cursive style italics, they look so incongruous to the rest of my code

I hope this is fixed or I need to search for a new font, and I really don't want to do that as I love cascadia code

[donn]

[Edited for tone.]

I'll be honest, this is quite jarring. I'm not criticizing the font as I do not have the design knowledge or time to do so, just that at the end of the day, even if I felt neutral about some of the glyphs (which I do not,) this is a radical departure that came quite out of the blue for millions of users who'd been happily using the oblique Cascadia Code day-to-day.

[x9]

This is, frankly, an incredibly confusing design choice for a Code font.

Please reconsider - specifically, reconsider the use of cursive-style letters. They are not easy to read, they serve no practical purpose in a fixed-width font and (I imagine, although I have nothing to back this up) they are not easily identifiable to non-native English speakers.

[benc-uk]

The readability is so poor, this change seems to go in the face of the drive to have better accessibility and inclusivity

[mcendu]

I think this version of italic should be put behind an ss** option, as quite a few people here stated that it is too handwriting-esque and hard to read.
This is a playful font for sure, but playfulness shouldn't be taken to that extreme.

[rashil2000]

There are some very good monospace fonts out there which implement non-cursive italic variants, and they look beautiful while at the same time retaining readability. Some examples are:

• Consolas
• Recursive Mono
• Jetbrains Mono
• Clincher Code
• Dank Mono (don't judge by the name xD)

These can serve as inspiration if Cascadia folks ever want to make a non-cursive italic variant, and also as alternatives to Cascadia for the time being.

[DennisGaida]

I don't want to pile on, and I don't know whether a new issue would be better and I would be happy to open one.

@aaronbell I'm happy we finally have a real italic version, thank you for taking the time designing it!

I like the overall look of the fresh italic version, I however don't like the style and readability of five lowercase letters: K,R,F,S,L.

Just replacing the five letters with the faux-italic (generated) version makes the text already a lot more readable (of course letter spacing is way off):

Please compare the first and the second line (again the second line is just replacing the marked characters with Cascadia Code Light faux-italic). Looking at the comments and this issue I am not alone in my opinion that these five letters are odd looking compared to the rest of the font. Also checking out other characters (see the following lines in the screenshot) from other alphabets I don't see any other odd characters that are as opinionated as lowercase K,R,F,S,L.

I'd be very happy for these five letters to be changed to look more like the regular Cascadia Code faux-italic characters - of course adjusted to match the characters style of the rest of the Italic version.

[pstranak-sw]

@DennisGaida I agree.

The "k" is still pretty similar to its printed version and more or less matches the printed design of the rest of the letters. I would not mind keeping it as it is.

But "r", "f", "s", "l" are clearly in a handwritten design and don't match their printed versions at all. They are nice, but they stand out in the text.
Interestingly, "a" is clearly handwritten, but somehow still easily recognizable. Maybe because even different people write the "a" the same way?

[LarnuUK]

Although I agree that the k is easily identifiable, @pstranak-sw , it is still quite dissimilar to the non-italics k. The italics one has a "loop" while the non-italics has 2 "flicks" (I have no idea if those are the correct terminologies to describe the style of a character); none of the other characters (apart from those highlighted) significantly change their design.

For a monospace font that is designed to code in, and is the default and shipped font with Windows Terminal, then I think that consistency is really important, and characters should be similar regardless of if they are bold, italics or not. Otherwise it could be mistaken that the k and k are different characters.

[pstranak-sw]

@LarnuUK Yeah, that's why I mentioned also "a". If the letters are easily identifiable, it's good enough for me. And I don't care whether it is because everyone writes them the same way ("a") or that they look similar to their printed versions ("k").

[codeman38]

I don't mind the other italic characters, but the current shape of r is a deal-breaker for me - it's far too easily mistakable for an n especially at small sizes.

[cjj19970505]

People from non-English countries like me might find this kind of italics hard to read. We have read printed letters in English learning and never seen a hand-writing font like this before. There are cases I found myself often fall into:

1. The lower case "s" and "r" leads some words completely out of their printed "shapes".
2. "n" and "r" are too similar (in my opinion). I thought I read a "Cneat" when I use this italics for the first time.

[ichenpipi]

💔 This italics is just so hard to read in codes...

[gorjiali]

nice italic version with style and readability by dank mono 👇, "r" character is very important in coding

[hxhc]

The R and S are the most difficult to read for coding. I strongly hope there would be an option to use the old italic version.

[jadedarko]

If this does end up happening, please let us use the existing italics - even if that's a different font

The new italics are absolutely beautiful and I love the cursive r and s.
It makes reading comments so much nicer ☺️

[Evotron]

Readability ain’t a problem with the cursive forms. Maybe it’s because I live in Special District, Republic of Colombia and we use the Roman alphabet? It’s a shame I have to go out of my way to make an italic look the way it’s supposed to.

I’m shocked I even have to say that. At least, you’re not getting rid of the true italic letterforms. When I ask for a bacon cheeseburger, I hope the restaurant doesn’t give me two buns and some mayo, telling me it’s because some people had some problems with a bacon cheeseburger being a bacon cheeseburger.

[aaronbell]

@efaulhaber Not sure. Soon, I expect.

@Evotron Well, I'm glad that it worked perfectly for you as is! Sorry for the extra trouble.

[LarnuUK]

I would hope that the vast majority of users here do appreciate the work you and others out into the font many of us have come to enjoy using, @aaronbell , and I hope that the comments here haven't ruined or shattered that ideal for you all.

I think what surprised many was that this wasn't something we were expecting, not without a "heads up" at least; I am sure that many that use the font are subscribe the notifications here, and/or Microsoft blogs that tell us about stuff like Cascadia Code. I myself found out about it in an announcement blog several years ago when it came out and have used it in many environments since.

As the font now comes shipped with Windows Terminal, has been adopted by many in their IDEs, used on websites including Stack Overflow as their default mono spaced font the sudden change was, in some ways, bound to draw an influx of sudden feedback; especially when the font is automatically updated my the Windows Store and thus the changed happened "overnight" with no user input for some.

If there are drives to do something like adding big changes to the font, I think the community would appreciate knowing before hand to give their opinions. Unless I, and many others, missed a blog post that said that this was coming, along with the "cursive" styles?

So yes, we are grateful for the work you all put in. There clearly many that greatly enjoy the font, as the fact so many have responded here shows quite how many use it in their daily lives.

[aaronbell]

Thank you @LarnuUK. I'll pass along the feedback.

[mdtauk]

Thank you @LarnuUK. I'll pass along the feedback.

Please don't be disheartened with the community @aaronbell with the way some have posted their feedback on here.

[pstranak-sw]

@aaronbell Thank you for looking for a middle ground. And also for not abandoning the idea of the Italics altogether. If my comments were among the harsh ones, I apologize for that.

As @LarnuUK wrote, the font has become too popular for any sudden changes. On one hand, that's a sign of a success, but on the other hand, there is a so much bigger risk of making someone upset.

BTW, personally, I'd remove the bottom serif from the new r, as it looks rather formal compared to the rest of the letters. But that's just nitpicking and feel free to ignore it.

[pstranak-sw]

And I'll miss the original l. A slimmer version with a less dominant loop would make it more similar to a printed version, while keeping the more natural look. Maybe something like in the Dank Mono. But I can imagine that it would still not be recognizable enough for many people. So I understand its complete replacement.

[arilbernhard]

Personally, I find that the "True Italic" forms help create more clear differentiation between comments and code than Oblique forms (not to mention are more FUN! Which is the whole point of Cascadia Code)

I think a lot of the confusion with this change comes from the misconception that the whole point of Cascadia Code was readability and usability, instead of fun.

[aaronbell]

@arilbernhard

Like I said before, the design is legible and it is readable even with the cursive elements—it wouldn’t have been approved by Windows Terminal if it wasn’t. Just because you don’t find it to your preference doesn’t make it a bad design or that we prioritized aesthetics over legibility.

[aaronbell]

@pstranak-sw yes, I’m sad to see the cursive forms go as well. I’d actually encourage you to try them for a bit. Once accustomed to seeing them (versus more standard obliques) I think you’ll become quite comfortable with it.

Anyway, who knows, maybe I’ll tweak things a bit more ;)

[arilbernhard]

@arilbernhard

Like I said before, the design is legible and it is readable even with the cursive elements—it wouldn’t have been approved by Windows Terminal if it wasn’t. Just because you don’t find it to your preference doesn’t make it a bad design or that we prioritized aesthetics over legibility.

As many have pointed out in this issue already, the font was quite literally illegible and unreadable for many - me included. The cursive in this font is completely different from the cursive I learned in school. I have never seen anything like it in my language, specifically the fun 'r' and 's'.

[DHowett]

the whole point of Cascadia Code was readability and usability, instead of fun.

People have made broad statements like this during this thread, and I just want to set the record straight: we do not market the Cascadia family primarily on its readability, though of course a readable font is desirable.
The first adjective in the repository description actually is "fun". Considering the design of the 3 and the K as well as the whimsy in the other letter forms this shouldn't come as a surprise exactly.

I see the difference between the r and s that some of you find illegible compared to more common forms as being similar to that of a two-story a or a g with a closed loop on the descender. Nobody would look at either of those and say (paraphrasing), "this font is garbage please delete it."

We're moving to more common letterforms because of community feedback, but there is an intangible spirit to the Cascadia family that I think we should honor.

Anyway- that's only my 2c 😄

[Sherlock-Holo]

I met this problem too

[jozefizso]

I would preferer these new not readable italics would be in a new Cascadia Italics font set and the Cascadia Mono and Cascadia Code would use the old and readable characters.

[mdtauk]

I think there is scope to add flourish whilst maintaining legibility with those non US users who either learnt different forms of cursive (taught as joined up writing in the UK) or non English native speakers who have to use English words for coding scenarios.

This is what in the UK would be considered the correct form taught to kids

and this is an example of a quick sketch I did with the surface pen

I am not saying these are the forms any cursive characters should take only that there may be more readable forms you could consider as you explore in the future

[th-bu]

@DHowett

I think the big problem here is that your original goals don't align with Cascadia Code becoming the default font in Terminal and Visual Studio. A fun font would be fine in many use cases but I personally don't see "being the default font in an IDE" as one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the work that you are putting into this but I think that your goals are not what the users expect of the default font in Visual Studio.

[patrickfatrick]

@aaronbell You should consider making the original design the default and using the opentype features to "disable" down to the buttoned-down variants.

This is what fantasque sans mono did for its more controversial lowercase-k glyph and I don't think many people are complaining about it now.

[bitigchi]

I really like the initial italics, and it will be sad to see them go. It should really be an option.

I was taught cursive using this style of lettering, and it really feels nostalgic and comfortable. Please keep it default, or as an option. I also think it adds character to the typeface in general.

Also, the new design is really, really dull and indifferent. Not enough "Cascadia".

[DHowett]

It is unlikely that you have a new opinion to add to this thread. If you feel like you do, e-mail it to me. Locking for now :)