element-hq / element-hq/element-web

Emojis no longer respect system emoji font by default and the toggle is hard to find

Open
#31,553 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Emoji O-Frequent S-Minor T-Defect
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
13.5k
Forks
2.8k
PR merge metrics
PR metrics pending

Description

### Steps to reproduce

1. Send an emoji/receive an emoji/cause some emoji to be rendered on the screen
2. Observe that the emojis are
a. Not what they were a few weeks ago
b. Not as clear
3. *edit*: Realise after about 5-10 minutes of trawling through the options that the toggle I want is under a collapsed-by-default section
4. Feel bad for the sharp tone in the github issue I just raised and try to pivot

### Outcome

#### What did you expect?
My system emoji font to be respected, or at the very least an option to not have EW/ED ~hijack emojis and force it's agenda on me~ hide the option to change the behaviour back.

Ideally, that toggle would be much less hidden. IMO it should *NOT* be under a collapsed-by-default section

#### What happened instead?
The behaviour changed from what it was for the last several years until ~ a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to find the toggle

### Operating system

Arch

### Application version

element-desktop-nightly-bin 2025121501-1

### How did you install the app?

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/element-desktop-nightly-bin

### Homeserver

_No response_

### Will you send logs?

No

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the emoji rendering and locating the emoji font toggle in the settings UI using the Arch nightly build described in the issue. Done means the system emoji font is respected by default and the option to change that behavior is easy to find rather than hidden under a collapsed section.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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