default config: switch to “DejaVu Sans Mono 8” as default font

As mentioned in the comment, this change is motivated by better support
for unicode, right-to-left rendering and scalability on retina/hidpi
setups.

diff --git a/i3.config b/i3.config
index de7e1fec5ae1c3cc603fcac8925824a1a35d17f4..f0e8c49e4a89032471e61f5be94eda96c5d6dc5e 100644 (file)
--- a/i3.config
+++ b/i3.config
@@ -10,13 +10,16 @@
 #
 
 # Font for window titles. Will also be used by the bar unless a different font
-# is used in the bar {} block below. ISO 10646 = Unicode
-font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
+# is used in the bar {} block below.
+# This font is widely installed, provides lots of unicode glyphs, right-to-left
+# text rendering and scalability on retina/hidpi displays (thanks to pango).
+font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 8
+# Before i3 v4.8, we used to recommend this one as the default:
+# font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
 # The font above is very space-efficient, that is, it looks good, sharp and
-# clear in small sizes. However, if you need a lot of unicode glyphs or
-# right-to-left text rendering, you should instead use pango for rendering and
-# chose a FreeType font, such as:
-# font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
+# clear in small sizes. However, its unicode glyph coverage is limited, the old
+# X core fonts rendering does not support right-to-left and this being a bitmap
+# font, it doesn’t scale on retina/hidpi displays.
 
 # use Mouse+Mod1 to drag floating windows to their wanted position
 floating_modifier Mod1