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Author's profile photo Tomas Buryanek

Best font for ABAP Editor?

Just one small blogpost.

Which font are you – ABAP developers using in code editor (either in SAP GUI SE38/SE80/SE24… or in Eclipse IDE)?

I have done little research in other programming languages and I found that one of the most preffered non-default one is called Consolas.

So I gave it a try and now I can say that it is great 🙂

It is one of the pre-installed fonts in MS Windows since Vista I think…

Here is comparison between default SAP GUI font:

Courier New:

/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/courier_839846.jpg

and here is Consolas:

/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/consolas_839791.png

Font settings can be found via button in right bottom corner of editor:

/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/settings_839834.jpg

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      38 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      short, simple, useful, thanks ;-).

      Author's profile photo Łukasz Pęgiel
      Łukasz Pęgiel

      Consolas of course 🙂 It's easier to read the O0 difference

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      My personal favorite : Adobe Source Code Pro.

      Author's profile photo Tomas Buryanek
      Tomas Buryanek
      Blog Post Author

      Looks nice too! I will try it later 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Joël Wagner,

      I cannot find it in my list of available fonts. Do i need to install it somewhere?

      BR,

      Suhas

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks for the link 🙂

      Author's profile photo Mantu Kumar
      Mantu Kumar

      Short and informative .. More readable and cool.. 🙂

      Author's profile photo Phillip Morgan
      Phillip Morgan

      Looks like something good came out of Vista after all! 😛

      Author's profile photo Naren Karra
      Naren Karra

      Thank you Tomas. Great one.

      I always deal with the 'Code templates' only.

      Will surely make a note to explore these other existing Options as well.

      Thanks once again.

      Regards,

      Naren K.

      Author's profile photo Rainer Hübenthal
      Rainer Hübenthal

      Additional tip: You can set the font size there as well. Useful for those of you enforced to write methods not longer than two times the screen size 😆

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Tricking the system 😎 But how do you trick the static code analysers? 😕

      Author's profile photo Rainer Hübenthal
      Rainer Hübenthal

      Send in a screenshot 😎

      Author's profile photo Richard Harper
      Richard Harper

      <chuckles>

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      Good hint, thanks,

      Generally I like it. However what I don't like that '|' becomes little bit italic and looks strange for headers for example.

      BTW anybody knows how ABAP editor allows font selection? In Word I have about 100 available fonts, in ABAP editor config only about 20. 🙁

      Author's profile photo Tomas Buryanek
      Tomas Buryanek
      Blog Post Author

      It is because comments are by default italic 🙂 You can set it in settings.

      EDIT: oh, now I see that "Courier new" has | nonitalic...

      And try uncheck "Show monospaced fonts only". It limits my selection of fonts too...

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      Thanks for the info.

      Didn't notice this italic flag before. I just changed the first one (Breakpoint), and there it was not editable. After changing for comments it works fine. Thanks.

      Didn't notice this "Show monospaced fonts only" flag either.  Actually "Segoe UI" looks also not bad.

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      Just noticed that you have the light yellow background for the Strings. Tried out and like it ... so I'll keep it 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Mee too!

      Author's profile photo Łukasz Pęgiel
      Łukasz Pęgiel

      Isn't it better to use dark background? I can't stand light backgrounds anymore 😉 When you have dark background for me it's more readable and after 8 hours eyes are quite OK 🙂

      /wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2015_11_30_15h56_33_841470.png

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      Some of my colleague used it for some other development area. Probable it's better for the eyes, but somehow I already got used to the light background. For me dark background looks like a telnet session 🙂

      Author's profile photo Łukasz Pęgiel
      Łukasz Pęgiel

      Peter Inotai wrote: For me dark background looks like a telnet session 🙂

      Isn't that cool?

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      It's cool for sure 🙂

      Maybe I'll give a try .... but I'm quite sure if I have to discuss some code with my colleagues and I have this dark background, they would be lost/freak out 🙂

      I had already this experience when I tried the Blue Crystal theme 🙂

      Author's profile photo Łukasz Pęgiel
      Łukasz Pęgiel

      the first Blue Crystal version was indeed a bit shock, but they repaired the icons and now it looks much better 😉

      Author's profile photo Dominik Di Lorenzo
      Dominik Di Lorenzo

      Hi Łukasz,

      do you use Windows?

      I tried to use the dark theme in Eclipse on Windows, but some elements stay light.

      E.g. the menu (File, Edit, Navigate...)

      Did you have this problem too?

      Best regards,

      Dominik

      Author's profile photo Łukasz Pęgiel
      Łukasz Pęgiel

      Yes, some parts look crapy on windows, but in my case I also use dark theme on windows, some adjustments of windows screen elements and it looks good. The problem with eclipse is that sometimes they use colors from theme, and sometimes from OS preferences ( for ex. Login window) and then it looks terrible. You have to adjust OS settings then to get rid of such prinlems.

      Author's profile photo Tomas Buryanek
      Tomas Buryanek
      Blog Post Author

      I was experimenting with dark theme too, but did not like it personally. As a day light programmer 🙂 defaultish theme is more readable, with better contrast for me.

      But dark theme indeed looks cool! and is used and works for many programmers.

      Author's profile photo Jelena Perfiljeva
      Jelena Perfiljeva

      Hm, this might just persuade me to make a switch from the plain text editor. 🙂

      Thanks for sharing!

      Author's profile photo Mistah Oui
      Mistah Oui
      Author's profile photo Stefan Hagen
      Stefan Hagen

      I'm using "Envy Code R" since 2008 for all kind of console and source code work: Envy Code R preview #7 (scalable coding font) - DamienG

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks for sharing, I'll test it 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I have changed my SAP editor settings, this is what it looks right now 😎

      2015-12-17 15_36_27-.jpg

      Now the last piece of the jigsaw, where are these settings stored? I am sure i read it somewhere but cannot seem to find it now.

      BR,

      Suhas

      PS - Found it Backup Restore New ABAP Editor Personalized Settings - ABAP Development - SCN Wiki

      Author's profile photo piotr naglowski
      piotr naglowski

      Hi Suhas Saha, settings are stored in files abap_spec.xml and abap_user.xml in path:

      C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Roaming\SAP\SAP GUI\ABAP Editor

      Best regards,

      Piotr

      Author's profile photo Jose Nunes
      Jose Nunes

      Hello,

      nice blog! I also use Consolas and dark background. For those who still use SAP GUI, here`s the guide from my pal Bruno Lucattelli :

      Bruno Lucattelli | Make your ABAP editor go dark

      Regards,

      JN

      Author's profile photo Flavio Furlan
      Flavio Furlan

      I agree, Bruno just did a very good job on that!

      Author's profile photo YUNUS KALDIRIM
      YUNUS KALDIRIM

      Hi,

      Thanks for your post. I have tested Consolas font. I think it's better than Courier font. But i have tested also Adobe source code pro. I think this is better than Consolas font.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      After years of using Courier New...it's time to try Consolas.

      I'm one of the developers who still prefer the SAP GUI instead of the Eclipse IDE. Another thing I have to try deeper...

      Author's profile photo Swati Garg
      Swati Garg

      Consolas is better  🙂 . Very good and useful blog, I will surely try it for my editor. Thanks 🙂 🙂 .