topic Why does dark theme switch fail when using emojis in the dashboard? in Dashboards & Visualizations

Why does dark theme switch fail when using emojis in the dashboard?

D2SI — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 16:08:29 GMT

Hello there!

I am working on a App I am willing to publish on Splunkbase.

I do like the dark mode one click feature so I try to adapt CSS colors based on currently applied theme, so that users will be able to pick dark theme without having light colors left on the dashboard.

It is working fine so far using a background rest search that checks for dashboard's theme and tokens.

However, I do use emojis in my dashboards and I have discovered that it makes the dark mode switch fail:

It might be a core issue so I guess I will have to live with it but I am posting there just in case anyone figured this out, maybe there is a way to escape / protect emoji or the like.

<dashboard theme="dark"> <label>Emoji Dark Mode</label> <row> <panel> <html> </html> </panel> </row> </dashboard>

PS: Code renderer also seems to dislike emojis but there is one one emoji within html :

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

niketn — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 15:43:19 GMT

@D2SI this is a known issue with Unicode Characters, with easy workaround 😂

2020-07-20 SPL-192213 Dark mode does not get applied to XML dashboards when using unicode characters like smiley icons Workaround: Do not use unicode characters in Dashboards with dark mode.

In case you want to use icons go for Simple XML JS extension or use standard icon libraries like Font-Awesome: https://fontawesome.com/

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

D2SI — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 20:57:06 GMT

Nice workaround indeed 😂

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

andrewtrobec — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 08:22:41 GMT

Splunk: "yeah, don't do that"

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

andrewtrobec — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 08:24:08 GMT

Came across this problem too. No issues in 7.3.x, after upgrade to 8.0.5 it started failing. I guess it's a regression.

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

blablabla — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 15:56:38 GMT

This bug also happens (on Splunk Enterprise 8.2.3.3) when using a XML Declaration like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Took us a while to figure this out

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

robtun1 — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 08:54:04 GMT

Saw this and managed to create a workaround because I didnt like the cursor moving etc.

So I wrapped the function within a search macro and now the dark theme also works when you call the macro instead of having emojio embedded into your dashboard!

e.g.

eval $arg1$=case($arg1$==1,"🥇",$arg1$==2,"🥈",$arg1$==3,"🥉",1==1,$arg1$)

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

robtun1 — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 08:54:35 GMT

managed by luck to find a workaround for this.

Re: Dark theme swith fails when using emojis in the dashboard

andrewtrobec — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 04:38:10 GMT

This works for me too, nice one! @D2SI I would suggest this being the solution.

Re: Why does dark theme switch fail when using emojis in the dashboard?

splunklearner — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 09:13:55 GMT

@D2SI @andrewtrobec @robtun1 @blablabla @niketn can you guys help me on this as well... Re: How to add the description for dashboard in be... - Splunk Community

I am trying to add ⚠️ in my Splunk dashboard description and as soon as I give this HTML, dark theme changing to light and it is not returning. Can you guys help me?