Is there a way to use this without custom fonts

[hmaarrfk]

I know that powerline needs special fonts to make everything pretty.

Is there a way to just use regular symbols? Installing patched fonts is kinda a pain.

I know the airline project was able to achieve this.

[eode]

An alternative (though somewhat avoiding the issue) is to distribute the modified font yourself, if you have the rights to -- or make an integrated means of installing/making it available.

The 3270 font has squares for continuation lines, awkwardly.