Bug 508296

Summary:	Default fixed font doesn't display braille
Product:	[Applications] konsole	Reporter:	Antti Savolainen <antti.savo>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Konsole Developer <konsole-devel>
Status:	RESOLVED DOWNSTREAM
Severity:	normal	CC:	christoph, nate, uhhadd
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	25.07.90
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Antti Savolainen 2025-08-15 14:59:35 UTC

SUMMARY
Demonstrative video: https://youtu.be/zIm4MYzdj4o
The default Konsole font doesn't work well with braille. The unlit dots are just a fainter shade of white which makes differentiating the characters very hard. I used ascii-image-converter in the video, but this also affects tools like btop which uses braille to display graphs. It is next to impossible to make heads or tails of btop with the default font

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open a console program that uses braille

OBSERVED RESULT
The characters are not differentiable

EXPECTED RESULT
Some saner font should be used

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
Qt Version: 6.10.0
Kernel Version: 6.16.0-arch2-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-7600U CPU @ 2.80GHz
Memory: 24 GiB of RAM (23.2 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: Intel® HD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20HG0003SG
System Version: ThinkPad T470s

Comment 1 Christoph Cullmann 2025-09-02 17:43:01 UTC

The default font is the default one from Plasma (if started in Plasma).

I agree that after X years we might want to switch the default.

Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-09-25 17:43:30 UTC

Braille is intended to be three dimensional, so you can feel it; it's not really a "font" intended for on-screen display. If it's being used as such, that's not really a supported thing, and amounts to a clever hack.

If there is a problem with the font itself, that needs to be reported to https://github.com/source-foundry/Hack/issues

Comment 3 Antti Savolainen 2025-09-25 18:08:24 UTC

Last commit to Hack was 5 years ago. I don't think anything will change by reporting to them. It would be easier to change the default font.

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2025-09-25 18:12:05 UTC

Perhaps it would, but that's a separate discussion.

It wouldn't make sense to change the default monospace font for this specific hack of using Braille to display non-Sixel imagery in Konsole. If we change the default monospace font, it should be because we like the new one better for normal use in text editors and terminals.