Incorrect display of Material Symbols icons rendered by `DankIcon`

[willdumm]

Compositor

Niri

Distribution

NixOS

If Other, please specify

No response

Select your Installation Method

Distro Packaging

Was this your original Installation method?

Yes

If no, specify

No response

dms doctor -vC

Click to expand

## DMS Doctor Report

System

• [ok] Operating System: NixOS 26.05 (Yarara)
  • Supported for runtime (install via NixOS module or Flake)
• [ok] Architecture: amd64
• [ok] Display Server: Wayland
  • WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1

Versions

• [ok] DMS CLI: dms 1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f
  • /nix/store/jrcji2clm84cf83ik4169wf3dmq10x43-dms-shell-1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f/bin/.dms-wrapped
• [ok] Quickshell: Quickshell 0.2.1 (revision 783c953987dc56ff0601abe6845ed96f1d00495a, distributed by Official-Nix-Flake)
  • /etc/profiles/per-user/will/bin/qs
• [ok] DMS Shell: 1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f
  • /nix/store/jrcji2clm84cf83ik4169wf3dmq10x43-dms-shell-1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f/share/quickshell/dms

Installation

• [ok] DMS Configuration: Found
  • /nix/store/jrcji2clm84cf83ik4169wf3dmq10x43-dms-shell-1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f/share/quickshell/dms
• [ok] shell.qml: Present
  • /nix/store/jrcji2clm84cf83ik4169wf3dmq10x43-dms-shell-1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f/share/quickshell/dms/shell.qml
• [info] Install Type: Nix store
  • /nix/store/jrcji2clm84cf83ik4169wf3dmq10x43-dms-shell-1.5-beta+date=2026-05-06_5df2b5f/share/quickshell/dms

Compositor

• [ok] niri: 26.04
  • /run/current-system/sw/bin/niri
• [info] Active: niri
• [ok] Background Blur: Supported
  • Compositor supports ext-background-effect-v1

Quickshell Features

• [ok] Polkit: Available
  • Authentication prompts
• [ok] IdleMonitor: Available
  • Idle detection
• [ok] IdleInhibitor: Available
  • Prevent idle/sleep
• [ok] ShortcutInhibitor: Available
  • Allow shortcut management (niri)
• [ok] BackgroundBlur: Available
  • Background blur API support in Quickshell

Optional Features

• [warn] accountsservice: Not available
  • User accounts
• [ok] power-profiles-daemon: Available
  • Power profile management
• [ok] logind: Available
  • Session management
• [ok] cups-pk-helper: Available
  • Printer management
• [info] I2C/DDC: No monitors detected
  • External monitor brightness control
• [ok] qt6-imageformats: Installed (4 formats)
  • Formats: WebP, TIFF, JP2, ICNS (/nix/store/vhk22zb4giwzxsqdq6pyhi2p9727vrky-qtimageformats-6.11.0/lib/qt-6/plugins/imageformats)
• [ok] kimageformats: Installed (4 formats)
  • Formats: AVIF, HEIF, JXL, EXR (/nix/store/vw24f660cdvph06fabz13d2klyfmc2b5-kimageformats-6.25.0/lib/qt-6/plugins/imageformats)
• [ok] Terminal: ghostty
• [ok] Network: NetworkManager
  • NetworkManager present. Using NM API.
• [ok] matugen: Installed
  • Dynamic theming
• [ok] dgop: Installed
  • System monitoring
• [ok] cava: Installed
  • Audio visualizer
• [ok] khal: Installed
  • Calendar events
• [ok] danksearch: Installed
  • File search
• [info] fprintd: Not installed
  • Fingerprint auth

Config Files

• [warn] settings.json: Present (read-only)
  • /home/will/.config/DankMaterialShell/settings.json
• [info] clsettings.json: Not yet created
  • /home/will/.config/DankMaterialShell/clsettings.json
• [info] plugin_settings.json: Not yet created
  • /home/will/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugin_settings.json
• [ok] session.json: Present
  • /home/will/.local/state/DankMaterialShell/session.json
• [ok] dms-colors.json: Present
  • /home/will/.cache/DankMaterialShell/dms-colors.json

Services

• [ok] dms.service: enabled, active
• [ok] greetd: enabled

Environment

• [info] QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME: Not set
• [info] QS_ICON_THEME: Papirus

---

Summary: 0 error(s), 2 warning(s), 31 ok

Description

Some of the icons in the DMS UI (for example the copied text icon in the clipboard manager, and the icons in the DMS Settings sidebar next to "Dank Bar" and "Displays" render incorrectly on my machine (nixos unstable).
I'm sure there are other poorly rendered icons, but these are the ones I notice a lot.
This is regardless of display scale setting (in normal usage I use 1x and 1.75x, and I've tested 2x too).

Expected Behavior

The three mentioned icons should look as follows:

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open the DMS Settings UI and observe the icons to the left of "Dank Bar" and "Displays"
2. Open the clipboard manager after copying a short chunk of text, and observe the icon to the left of that copied value in the manager

Error Messages/Logs

No response

Screenshots/Recordings

No response

[willdumm]

The simplest and narrowest fix seems to be to add

renderType: Text.NativeRendering

to https://github.com/AvengeMedia/DankMaterialShell/blob/main/quickshell/Widgets/DankIcon.qml#L36 .

Incidentally, I see that there's a commented line at https://github.com/AvengeMedia/DankMaterialShell/blob/main/quickshell/Widgets/StyledText.qml#L40 that fixes the issue when uncommented on my system. This was briefly enabled then commented again in f2deaec .
Perhaps @bbedward has something to add about why this was commented out, but I suspect it may cause issues with fractional scaling and text alignment.
However, my proposed fix would only affect rendering of these Material Symbols icons, rather than all StyledText.
Since DankIcon appears to already round its dimensions to integer pixels, I think it's a safe change to make.

Anyway, it works on my machine and I haven't noticed any side-effects.

I'm happy to open a PR if another DMS contributor confirms this seems like a reasonable change, or if anyone else can reproduce this issue.

[bbedward]

It's kinda dependent on freetype/fontconfig mainly, native rendering may not look good even with icons. But maybe can make it a general option for text to choose thhe render type.

[willdumm]

Amazing, thank you for adding that!