rootfont is in active alpha development. Expect changes.

Features

A comprehensive overview of rootfont's capabilities.

Font Browsing & Preview

  • Grid and list views for browsing installed fonts
  • Custom text preview with adjustable size
  • Quick-sample presets for fast evaluation
  • Search with glyph-coverage filter
  • Favorites, recents, and smart collections
  • Drag-and-drop font import

Programming Workspace

A dedicated workspace that scopes to monospaced fonts and sorts by programming fit.

  • Sidebar filters: Recommended for code, Avoid for code, Managed by rootfont
  • Programming suitability scoring (S/A/B/C/NR) across ten weighted factors
  • Score breakdown with per-factor progress bars and grade badges
  • Configurable score weights: Default, Terminal Heavy, IDE Heavy, Minimalist presets
  • Persisted score cache at ~/Library/Application Support/RootFont/scores.json

Suitability Scoring Factors

  1. Monospace baseline
  2. Glyph disambiguation (0Oo, 1lI, etc.)
  3. Ligature support
  4. Stylistic flexibility (variable font axes)
  5. Box drawing character support
  6. Powerline glyph support
  7. Nerd Font patch status
  8. Variable font capabilities
  9. Language coverage breadth
  10. Weight variety

Font Compare

  • Side-by-side comparison
  • Overlay mode (opacity + visibility)
  • Glyph zoom mode
  • Outline-diff mode
  • Score delta and factor comparison between fonts
  • Language-coverage diff

Code Preview

  • Sample/Code preview toggle with mini syntax highlighting
  • 12 languages: Swift, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Go, Java, Kotlin, SQL, JSON, Shell, CSS
  • Semantic and Native code-snippet strategies

OpenType Controls

  • Live ligature toggling
  • Slashed/dotted zero options
  • Stylistic sets selection
  • Per-font preference persistence

Font Activation & Workflow

  • Session-activate fonts temporarily
  • User-scope install to ~/Library/Fonts/RootFont/
  • Uninstall and startup reconciliation
  • One-click editor config: VS Code, Cursor, Alacritty, Kitty, Warp, Zed
  • Copy PostScript name, open in Font Book, open managed-fonts folder

Localization

Localized UI in: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish.