Emoji Support
GP
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I think diaspora* should support emojis.
Emojis are Unicode smileys that originate from Japan. They were popularized by their integration in smartphone keyboards. They are very, very popular and are quickly becoming a standard in smiley usage. In fact, the Global Language Monitor determined that the heart emoji was last year's most popular "word".
Read more about emoji characters on Wikipedia.
However, even if they are widely supported on iOS and Android, emoji characters are very poorly supported on desktops and on the Web. See an example here. You should not see squares.
To remedy this problem, developers created Emoji One, an open source collection of emoji characters that are embedded directly on the Web. Twitter did the same, and now share their emojis with WordPress.com.
I suggest that diaspora* should do the same. I find emojis cute, they are becoming an open standard and they are very efficient in sharing feelings over the network.
Are you a developer? If you are interested in this idea, take a look at this page and this page.
Warning!
I bet some people will assume that emojis automatically replaces traditional text smileys/emoticons like :) or :(
This is wrong!
As you read earlier, emojis have their own Unicode characters. For example, a grinning face is Unicode U+1F603 (😃). No need to setup something like a system that replaces :grin: with an image!
Oh, and you don't like emojis? Well emojis are Unicode characters, so not displaying them properly because you don't approve them would be censorship! Diaspora* users should have the free speech to spam their contacts with how many emojis they like. 😉
Steffen van Bergerem Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:37PM
@gp I'd like to use an emoji font instead of images. We already switched to an icon font (entypo) and that works really well so far. (except for joindiaspora but that is pod specific) We wouldn't have to replace characters and could just parse the text and add a specific class to some characters to display them with the emoji font.
Just like @jhass I haven't seen an emoji font that would fit our current design.
Jonne Haß Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:39PM
The proposal is yet vague because it’s about the concept, and not about the technology itself.
And I'm saying that such a proposal that doesn't make clear on how to do it and how it would look like, is rather useless and won't add anything to the discussion, as you phrased it.
That’s the only way to achieve this yet, because fonts do not support colors
That assumes "this" is "colored emoji", which is nowhere made clear. Microsoft is doing grayscale emoji since the 90s (see Webdings) and basically 90% of the Unicode Emojis added by Unicode 7 are coming from these.
Of course, but then I also have the right to declare your opinion as “whimsical”.
I think there's an important difference in saying "I don't like X" and "X is okay because Y is Z", with Y being a person and Z being an insult.
GP Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:41PM
@steffenvanbergerem Then I suggest that you use the current workaround @dumitruursu is working on instead of waiting for a font to be developed. What matters right now is that emojis are not currently being supported and that most of them can only be viewed on smartphones. There is no such thing as an emoji font yet, except Noto Sans Emoji which is not designed to be a Web font.
Better support any emoji design than no emoji at all.
GP Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:46PM
@jhass Relax! Further proposals will make decisions on futher details. The current proposal is to see if it is relevant and important to support emojis, or if it's just a pointless idea. There's no need to come up with a 100% established solution yet (especially because there are more than one complete solution).
Microsoft is now working on full-color emojis.
As you can see, colored emoji fonts are being developed, but only as proprietary and native projects. That's why Twitter's emojis are so good.
Steffen van Bergerem Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:51PM
Better support any emoji design than no emoji at all.
I disagree. While it would be great if we would support emojis (in terms of displaying them with a special font) I still think that implementation and design matters and if that is bad I'd rather wait.
Jonne Haß Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:52PM
There is no such thing as an emoji font yet
I'm on my laptop. I use Firefox.
$ pacman -Qs noto
$
Yet I do not see any squares in the proposal but a turtle. Must be the NSA messing with my computer or somehting...
There’s no need to come up with a 100% established solution yet
Okay, then I'll probably just ignore Loomio from now on and you can find somebody else to merge PRs I disagree with. But I'd rather prefer to not waste my time on voting on even more "I can haz this please" proposals.
GP Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:53PM
@steffenvanbergerem If a special font did exist, then right now Twitter and WordPress would not be working on a JavaScript technology.
What's wrong about Twemoji?
Jonne Haß Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:57PM
What’s wrong about Twemoji?
Nothing, the issue is that you're trying to change people's opinions. Some people, including me and apparently Steffen, just don't like the looks of the provided graphical emojis or graphical emojis in general. That's it.
GP Tue 6 Jan 2015 7:00PM
@jhass Indeed, you just proved my point that there is no such thing as an emoji font for the web yet.
The turtle is a proof that you're on an unfair system. Most people don't see the turtle, and that's the problem. Diaspora* users should not be forced to use Arch Linux with Noto installed in order to see the turtle.
Okay, then I’ll probably just ignore Loomio from now on and you can find somebody else to merge PRs I disagree with. But I’d rather prefer to not waste my time on voting on even more “I can haz this please” proposals.
As you wish. However, I suggest being patient and let things come when it is time. @dumitruursu is working on a solution. After the first proposal will end, if it is favorable to emojis then another proposal would be created to determine whether his solution should be merged as a temporary workaround. As I said, it would be pointless to just ask everyone "Should be merge @dumitruursu's work?" because we should first decide whether or not we care about emojis.
GP · Tue 6 Jan 2015 6:31PM
@jhass Of course, but then I also have the right to declare your opinion as "whimsical".
@goob I have no idea who these people are. However, if you are referring to my attitude, it seems like I may not be the only one to feel the same way about diaspora*: I feel like diaspora* is currently being managed by a developer oligarchy which is hindering the UX part of diaspora* from moving forward.
However, consider this as off-topic from the discussion. Also don't take this in consideration when voting for the proposal.