Nerd fonts glyph width in 1.2.0

[gebsh]

Issue Description

I use MonoLisa font patched with the Nerd Fonts font patcher using the --mono option. AFAIU, this option is supposed to make glyphs fit a single cell. However, in Ghostty 1.2.0 the glyphs from Nerd Fonts changed to always take up 2 cells of space. (Presumably because of #7809.) This makes them unaligned with regular characters and leaves unbalanced amount of space around them.

I'm not sure if this behavior is expected or if it's a bug. I found #8651, but that discussion is specifically about CJK characters and is related to another entry from the 1.2.0 changelog. I also checked other popular terminal emulators and none of them has this problem. If this is intentional, is there a possibility of adding a configuration option that reverts the rendering to pre-1.2 where those characters render “correctly”?

Expected Behavior

This is how my prompt renders in Ghostty 1.1.3:

The chevron icon is aligned with the tilde character representing the home directory, and the space around the branch icon is even.

Here's how other popular terminal emulators render the same prompt in a directory with a Git repository:

In all emulators, the rendering of icons more-or-less matches that from Ghostty 1.1.3.

Actual Behavior

In Ghostty 1.2.0, the same prompt renders as follows:

Here, the chevron icon is now misaligned relative to ~, and the branch icon is shifted to the right.

Reproduction Steps

ghostty +show-face --cp=0xEAB6
ghostty +show-face --cp=0xF418

In Ghostty 1.1.3, the above commands print characters that are perfectly centered within the double angle brackets. In Ghostty 1.2.0, however, both characters are shifted to the right.

Ghostty Logs

No response

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.2.0

Version
  - version: 1.2.0
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS 26 (Tahoe)

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

This is reproducible with the default configuration and the default font.

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[korikhin]

Same issue with the house symbol here. Before the update it was perfectly aligned with the chevron.

[baichuu]

i have same issue with icon

[MrConnorKenway]

Presumably because of #7809.

I have tried manually building b799462 and d772b2c:
b799462 (nerd font symbol occupies half of block):

d772b2c:

[filipwiech]

Might be fixed by #8829?

[danielwe]

Hi all! There's a series of PRs to improve icon scaling and alignment, which I think will deal with most of your concerns. Just hang tight while they make it through the review pipeline. See #8563 and #8847, and also #8580 if you're on macOS.

[gebsh]

I've just updated Ghostty to 1.2.2, and the font rendering improvements from 1.2.1 seem to fix this problem.

[ph1losof]

Similar issue starting from 1.2.0 on macOS Sequoia

Using default ghostty nerd font - JetbrainsMono

My ghostty config:

# Fonts
font-size = 16
font-thicken = true
adjust-underline-position = 4
font-feature = -calt
font-feature = -liga

# Mouse
mouse-hide-while-typing = true
cursor-style = block
cursor-style-blink = false
adjust-cursor-thickness=3


# Theme
window-colorspace = display-p3
theme = Catppuccin Mocha
cursor-invert-fg-bg = true
background-opacity = 1.0
window-theme = ghostty
background-blur-radius = 0

# Window
window-padding-y = 0
window-padding-x = 0
window-decoration = false
macos-titlebar-style = hidden

# Clipboard
clipboard-read = allow
clipboard-write = allow
clipboard-trim-trailing-spaces = true
clipboard-paste-protection = true

# Shell
shell-integration-features = no-cursor,sudo,no-title
shell-integration = fish

# Other
macos-option-as-alt = true
confirm-close-surface = false
gtk-single-instance = true

---

sw_vers

ProductName:            macOS
ProductVersion:         15.3.2
BuildVersion:           24D81

ghostty +version

Ghostty 1.2.0

Version
  - version: 1.2.0
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

---

sw_vers

ProductName:            macOS
ProductVersion:         15.3.2
BuildVersion:           24D81

ghostty +version

Ghostty 1.1.3

Version
  - version: 1.1.3
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version: 0.13.0
  - build mode : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime: apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine: font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer   : renderer.Metal
  - libxev     : main.Backend.kqueue

---

[danielwe]

Yep. See comment above: #8822 (comment)

[ceccopierangiolieugenio]

similar issue with this glyph:
U+25A3 ▣ -> e2 96 a3 : WHITE SQUARE CONTAINING BLACK SMALL SQUARE
Tat surpsisingly is not included in JetBrainsMono:

Where:

 $ ghostty +show-face --string='▣'
U+25A3 « ▣ » found in face “DejaVuSansM Nerd Font Mono”.

 $ ghostty +show-face --string='□'
U+25A1 « □ » found in face “JetBrains Mono”.

 $ ghostty +show-face --string='a'
U+61 « a » found in face “JetBrains Mono”.

OS | macOS Version 15.7.1 (Build 24G231)

 $ ghostty --version
Ghostty 1.2.2

Version
  - version: 1.2.2
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

[ceccopierangiolieugenio]

I just checked and confirm it is fixed with the version 1.2.3

 $ ghostty --version
Ghostty 1.2.3

Version
  - version: 1.2.3
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue