Bug 504643

Summary:	Some plasma applications have blurry font rendering, while others are fine
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Luis <stereomato>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	normal	CC:	akselmo, kde, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.3.5
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Kickoff System Settings Dolphin Kickoff + Dolphin + System Settings kickoff + SystemSettings + Dolphin Info Center + System Monitor

Description Luis 2025-05-22 00:10:24 UTC

SUMMARY
I have noticed that widget settings dialogs, Kickoff, and System Settings have some sort of blurry font rendering, compared to the rest of the KDE apps, like Dolphin and Krita.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
Hmmm, I have scaling set to 125%, font rendering (system wide) set to grayscale with disabled hinting, but changing hinting or antialiasing setings doesn't do anything.

OBSERVED RESULT
Fonts are blurry in the situations described in the summary.

EXPECTED RESULT
Font rendering is like in Dolphin/Kate.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: NixOS 25.11
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.14.0
Qt Version: 6.9.0
Kernel Version: 6.14.6-zen1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12500H
Memory: 23.2 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-05-22 15:17:22 UTC

Please attach a screenshot that shows the blurry text in those dialogs and also the crisp clear text elsewhere. Thanks!

Also, can you see if the problem affects QML-based KDE apps as well, like Discover, System Settings, System Monitor, Info Center, Spectacle, or NeoChat?

Comment 2 Luis 2025-05-23 21:30:16 UTC

Created attachment 181688 [details]
Kickoff

Comment 3 Luis 2025-05-23 21:31:24 UTC

Created attachment 181689 [details]
System Settings

Comment 4 Luis 2025-05-23 21:32:04 UTC

Created attachment 181690 [details]
Dolphin

Comment 5 Luis 2025-05-23 21:35:35 UTC

Created attachment 181691 [details]
Kickoff + Dolphin + System Settings

Strangely, Kickoff for some reason seems fine now? No idea what was going on. Now, I noticed that System Settings even has RGB subpixel rendering enabled, which I actually have disabled with fontconfig and is also reflected on System Setting's Fonts page.

Comment 6 Luis 2025-05-23 21:43:54 UTC

Created attachment 181692 [details]
kickoff + SystemSettings + Dolphin

Alright I uh, logged out and logged back in and now Kickoff, the panel font also have the blurrier font rendering  + RGB subpixel rendering.

Comment 7 Luis 2025-05-23 21:45:59 UTC

Created attachment 181694 [details]
Info Center + System Monitor

Yes, it happens on Info Center and System Monitor too.

Comment 8 Luis 2025-05-23 21:47:48 UTC

In general, it feels like the previous font rendering technique thingy, I remember there was a Plasma announcement about Plasma snapping things to the grid (something that Gnome also does). Idk how to compare though, since I don't know if KDE has a setting to disable that snapping thing. Gnome has it in the form of a dconf setting (font-rendering)

Comment 9 Nate Graham 2025-05-28 17:06:34 UTC

Things *generally* look like how I expect at 125% scale with a somewhat low resolution panel (I assume 1080p@14", or something like that?).

The fact that you can'turn off RGB sub-pixel anti-aliasing or change the hinting in Plasma UI components' text is Bug 501715. I suspect ultimately that's the cause of any of the not-unfixable issues here.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 501715 ***