Ubuntu Mono to have ligatures, like Fira Code has

kindly reminding about the question :)

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

sadness :(

any ideas?

Anton, apologies for not having responded faster. When this request was first filed (14 days ago), some initial research was done covering what the request might encompass, what ligatures the request could be referring to, and what changes would be introduced as a result.

Yes, adding code-style ligatures is something that can /technically/ be done.

A different, and harder question is whether it would be /useful/ and /positive/ to add them to the main font; or to leave this to more specialised niche fonts that are usable installable, such as FiraCode.

It may be that by adding unexpected ligatures it may make life harder more difficult for other users: for example when editing in an HTML document to different between '→' and '-->' is probably useful to see (whereas, in the example of FiraCode, these render the same).

ie. There is probably a greater case for adding the contextual '12:34' colon vertical alignment shifting (where the rendered result remains syntactically equivalent, just prettier); than for some of the other digraphs where seeing the difference between '—' and '---' is one of the reasons that code is still developed with monospace fonts.

The most recent comments to FiraCode appear to have been the removal of some digraph/ligature sequences. This in itself may indicate that there is a balance to be struck.

Paul, thank you for a very detailed and great reply! After reading it, I see your point, probably adding ligatures to Ubuntu Mono by default may indeed be not the best idea :)