Show HN: 433 – How to make a font that says nothing

(untested.sonnet.io)

43 points | by rpastuszak 4 days ago

6 comments

  • spiffytech 8 hours ago
    I always loved the idea of the Dotsies glyph system for coffeeshop mode. It's a font that converts the English alphabet into a compact dot notation.

    Never got around to becoming fluent in it, but I'd like to someday.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20240418032751/https://dotsies.o...

  • jasonjmcghee 19 hours ago
    Long time fan of your art and writing.

    Is the idea here with Coffeeshop mode that typos can be dealt with later?

    • rpastuszak 13 hours ago
      Thanks! And yes, although the same idea applies to Ensō in general.

      Looking at the feedback from people, I see two camps: those who rely on autocomplete and those who abhor it.

      I normally use it in two ways:

      - quickly turn it on/off when someone is passing by, so I can carry on writing undistracted

      - keep it on for several minutes at a time, esp. when writing in a busy public place

    • yorwba 16 hours ago
      It seems like the gimmick of Ensō is that it's write-only and doesn't allow you to edit anything, so not being able to see your typos might be for the best actually.
      • rpastuszak 13 hours ago
        Spellcheck and autocorrect are disabled when Coffeeshop Mode is on.

        (although, IIRC, you can override that)

        Another reason: autocorrect/autocomplete can trigger visible previews/highlights on the screen.

        (thinking about this out loud here: what about IME/pinyin? That works well in both modes, it's necessary)

  • efskap 18 hours ago
    Very cool, like <input type="password"> except with whitespace so you retain a vague sense of the wordshapes :) I could honestly see myself using this in a coffeeshop for the compromise between privacy and feedback.
    • rpastuszak 11 hours ago
      Thanks! I use it all the time. Someone on lobste.rs mentioned Redacted Script (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Redacted+Script) and I'm considering building something similar, even if just for fun, but for the entire first unicode plane, since otherwise the characters wouldn't get masked.
  • landgenoot 16 hours ago
    Reminds me of dotsies [1]. However the goal of dotsies to keep it still readable and use less space.

    What are the odds someone in a coffee shop is able to read dotsies as well?

    [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18703805

  • bouyaveman6 14 hours ago
    Thanks for the sharing, installed and ready to try for my next coffeeshop session
    • rpastuszak 10 hours ago
      Let me know how it goes! I'm in bug bashing mode atm