_ = " "

December 28, 2005 7:15 AM

[OS X filter] There was a recent question about nice fixed-width fonts. I tried Bitstream Vera Sans on OS X and love it- I'd like to make it my new Terminal.app font. Unfortunately, the _ character does not display. Since a lot of the coders I work with use _ to seperate words in variable names, this is a big problem for me. Google turns up... my comment in the referenced thread, and that's it. Any other Mac users found a solution?
posted by bobot to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Is the problem that there simply is no underscore character included in the font? If that's the case, I'd be glad to add an underscore to the font for you. (I have Fontographer laying around somewhere.) Just contact me through the email in my profile.
posted by NewGear at 7:24 AM on December 28, 2005

I thought of that, but I can't see why everyone is recommeding this as the font to use for monospace if it lacks an _ on every platform. I think it's got to be some kind of OS X weirdness.
posted by bobot at 7:40 AM on December 28, 2005

I just tried it. It looks like Terminal's default line spacing is not quite tall enough for Vera Sans Mono -- the bottom edge of any character that descends below the baseline is cut off, which would cause an underscore (a character that exists entirely below the baseline) to appear invisible.

Go to Font -> Show Fonts (or press Cmd-T). Bump the "Height" slider at the bottom up a notch. Ckick the button below the slider to save the setting.
posted by jjg at 7:46 AM on December 28, 2005

thank you jjg!!! That's perfect.
posted by bobot at 7:52 AM on December 28, 2005

Awesome, this looks great.
posted by mrbill at 8:32 AM on December 28, 2005