[PD] macOS default font now Menlo

[Dan Wilcox]

Howdy all,

As Miller has finalized 0.51-3, I wanted to let macOS people know that Pd's default font on the platform has been changed to Menlo.

This is a short note to preempt a flood of "why does Pd suddenly display 0s with a slash instead of a dot!" messages.

# Menlo?!

Menlo is a system font included with macOS back to 10.6 and is actually based on Bitstream Sans Mono and DejaVu Sans Mono, so there should be no sizing or positioning issues with existing patches. I find it actually slightly more readable.

See font difference screenshots here: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/988#issuecomment-727617574 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/988#issuecomment-727617574>

# Why?

There is an issue for macOS 10.15+ with how DejaVu Sans Mono is loaded/displayed on the Tk canvas to where Pd renders the font "too thin" within object & messages. It doesn't affect functionality except for most selection being off and objects have an inordinate amount of trailing space.

Full Github discussion here: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/988 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/988>

I spent some time trying to find if it was a problem a mac setting or a bug with Tk. It may indeed be the latter but it will take time to make a good bug report upstream. In the meantime, I found that simply using a system font renders fine and also found that Menlo thankfully matches very close to DejaVu Sans Mono.

I am a bit disappointed to drop the "one front on all platforms" approach, but this is a pretty good alternative to "let's hold up a bug fix relates for an inordinate amount of time" (which most contributors don't have anyway).

--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika>
danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/>
robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>



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