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Comment by fishgoesblub | Hacker News Reader

I initially scoffed when I read "platform-native UI" as I've found programs made in Electron typically proclaim something similar when they are anything but native, so when I saw it used GTK for Linux (SwiftUI for MacOS) my interests were piqued. Always fun to mess around with new terminal emulators.

edit: alas, it doesn't support bitmap fonts..

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You can get pixel perfect bitmap fonts by using their TrueType conversions and using fractional point font sizes. There are dozens of bitmap enthusiasts that were in the beta and they're totally convinced because well... it's pixel identical.

I've noted before in issues I'm open to supporting bitmap fonts if someone contributes it, but not interested in adding it myself. The workaround above is very good.

When using the original Terminus font failed, I tried the TTF version (Terminess) which in VSCode at specific point sizes is crisp and sharp. But with Ghostty, it was blurry and hard to read. At that point I gave up trying.

The reason might be that you need to have an "anti-aliasing" checkbox to untick on MacOS (generally in the font selection menu). I switched from Terminal to iTerm for that reason, on my work MBP.

Looks like a very nice project overall. I was initially interested in the "native" UI but after trying Ghostty I think I've realised that in a terminal app I actually want all the UI to be terminal/TUI based within the terminal itself. This is a personal preference I've discovered rather than a criticism of Ghostty.

It seems fast and really nice otherwise, so I'll keep fiddling with it, but so far I still prefer, for example, the "non-fancy" tabs in WezTerm (where the tabs are just rendered as line of terminal cells at the top or bottom of the window rather than GUI elements), and the way that modals ("Really quit WezTerm?" etc.) are also rendered within the terminal.

I'd also struggle to live without quick select mode[0].

[0] https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/quickselect.html

Yeah I also searched for a quick select in ghostty while checking now. I am probably too deep in wezterm with my lua configuration anyway, but still.

Thanks for this post, first thing I did was search "bitmap" in the thread. If I can't use Terminus (+Unifont fallback), it's not for me.

It was the first thing I check whenever I try a new terminal. If Terminus doesn't work then the terminal doesn't work for me.

Curious as to how much it matters; if a TTF font looks similar and is fast?

> if a TTF font looks similar

It doesn't, especially on average DPI monitors. Oh, you mean the OTF trick.

fyi, I have just tried Unifont and worked perfectly.

>it doesn't support bitmap fonts

Very disappointing. Not sure why people are trying to kill off bitmap support in everything these days. Will stick with foot.

IMO the main reason is high DPI screens. On macs it's essentially the default, and it'll probably become the default in the future for everything. Since bitmap fonts make much more sense with low pixel density I think it's not going to be a priority for any newly developed apps.

Bitmap fonts can be scaled by integer factors without losing any crispness, and most high-DPI displays in common use today would look just fine with a 2x or 3x font upscale.

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