Font sizes are a variablejbsegalMarch 8 2016, 17:43:55 UTC
For people with better eyesight than you, that can be set for 6 windows. For people with worse, that can be a perfect 4. Or, you know that terminal windows can be any HxW (rowsXcolumns) that you want them to be, right?
But there does seem to be a standard default size for a command window, across applications. The Windows command prompt, the 4nt command prompt, the Cygwin command prompt, the SecureCRT ssh window, etc,etc, all open by default at 24 x 80, with the same 10-point font.
And there are good reasons not to change that 24 x 80 because I (and I assume most people) have got a lifetime's worth of scripts that assume they are running in a 24 x 80 window. Also, there are plenty of applications that assume (by default) that they are running in 24 x 80 windows, and behave badly when they're not. Several IRC clients, for example, behave this way.
So I think that deviating from 24 x 80 is not such a simple matter. Changing font size, of course, is a simple matter, but presumably that default font size is there because it's the one that most people find most comfortable.
I suspect they all open with the same default font because it's set as the system-wide default. I know that I have changed that font in every windows-based (and most linux-based) (and many mac-based) terminals that I have worked with for the past 25 years. A default is set because it's adequate for most people, not because it's BEST for any particular person.
Most people who have a fair number of scripts either just don't care about the terminal size or have their script READ the terminal size and deal with it.
I have never (or at least in memory) seen an IRC client that can't deal with a window as large as I choose to make it. I suggest you're using bad - or at least old - irc clients.
Changing from 80x24 is dirt simple for 95% of the .05% of the population that uses terminal windows.
I can see changing the 24 (though I'd much rather have a third 24-row window than have two oversized windows) but changing the 80 seems pointless. No matter how wide I make my windows, all of my files are at most 80 characters wide,so I'm just going to have a bunch of useless white space in the window instead of a bunch of useless blue space outside the window.
PS--- I have just exxperimented with reducing the font size so as to fit either one more window vertically or one more horizontally. The largest font size at which I can do this has characters that are 5 pixels high by 8 wide. I am willing to go out on a limb and speculate that approximately nobody will find this comfortable for reading.
Or, you know that terminal windows can be any HxW (rowsXcolumns) that you want them to be, right?
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And there are good reasons not to change that 24 x 80 because I (and I assume most people) have got a lifetime's worth of scripts that assume they are running in a 24 x 80 window. Also, there are plenty of applications that assume (by default) that they are running in 24 x 80 windows, and behave badly when they're not. Several IRC clients, for example, behave this way.
So I think that deviating from 24 x 80 is not such a simple matter. Changing font size, of course, is a simple matter, but presumably that default font size is there because it's the one that most people find most comfortable.
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I know that I have changed that font in every windows-based (and most linux-based) (and many mac-based) terminals that I have worked with for the past 25 years. A default is set because it's adequate for most people, not because it's BEST for any particular person.
Most people who have a fair number of scripts either just don't care about the terminal size or have their script READ the terminal size and deal with it.
I have never (or at least in memory) seen an IRC client that can't deal with a window as large as I choose to make it. I suggest you're using bad - or at least old - irc clients.
Changing from 80x24 is dirt simple for 95% of the .05% of the population that uses terminal windows.
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If you can find a windows copy of Menlo, the default OSX terminal font, it's fairly popular for very small size use.
http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts ?
Of course, we're both old now, so anything too small is of course likely to be problematic.
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