Emojis: Convert text to emojis when sending a message

[MightyCreak]

Would be nice to convert text smileys to their emojis equivalent.

:) => 😄
;) => 😉
:P => 😛
etc...

Edit:

This option should be optional, as some people don't like the non-determinism of this feature.

Also, if the option is enabled, it would be nice if emojis written in plain ASCII text would be parsed as well and interpreted into emojis (e.g. :dromedary_camel: would become 🐪).

This can be done by the client either before sending the message or after receiving it. I don't know what's the best implementation.

[MightyCreak]

As proposed in the Riot room, this option should be optional.

[MightyCreak]

Part of #2984

[dbkr]

I'd probably vote against this: I had enough of MSN messenger randomly turning things into emoji back in 1999.

[MightyCreak]

The problem with MSN-like client is that they were stupidly parsing the text and every time they found a pattern they would interpret it as a smiley. This is especially painful when sharing code, like if for Instance I was pasting this: "MyClass::Disable()", it was converting the ":D" into 😆 making your code both stupid and unreadable.

To prevent this, you can simply only detect smiley that are "alone" (i.e. that has spaces before and after). The RE pattern would be this: (^|[[:space:]]):D([[:space:]]|$) so that it also tolerates text smileys at beginning and end of line.

I think this simplifies the writing of casual and pro messages in an elegant way.

[MightyCreak]

@dbkr I changed the description of the issue, especially this:

This option should be optional, as some people don't like the non-determinism of this feature.

And:

This can be done by the client either before sending the message or after receiving it. I don't know what's the best implementation.

Would you still be against such feature? Since, depending on the chosen implementation, emoji characters would still be sent through the network (and not ASCII text).

[kythyria]

Never, ever do things like this on receive. Ever. (Otherwise it can't be optional for the sender, for one thing)

[ara4n]

The way this is meant to work in the RTE is that if you hit : it pops up a list of possible emoji, including :) and :( etc as options. It could also autosuggest similar ones. I think this will be sufficient.

This is tracked by a tickbox at #1761

[MightyCreak]

But not all the smiley starts with :, for instance ;)

[ara4n]

we hope that folks will learn that hitting : brings up an emoji menu, whether they were thinking ;) or not ;)

[MightyCreak]

I really think this point would be criticized when comparing against Slack (where the feature is opt-in by default). Of course some will love the fact that it's not too simple to make smileys, but I'm not sure it's going to be the majority of users.

I understand that all the emojis will be proposed through : and I really like and use it everyday, but I don't understand why Riot could not have a feature to convert well known smileys to emojis (and I'm talking about UI here, not Matrix, just to be clear). Since I don't see the difficulty or the security issues here, I don't see why not doing it. It's not invasive either. I understand that it's not high priority, but closed? I'm not sure... I think there is value in this feature that the mere : won't suffice.

Also, it would be an interesting feature if the text => emoji map was exposed to the users, especially with custom emojis, that would allow a user to map common abbreviations (e.g. brb, lol, omw, ...) to emojis of their choice.

Just wanted to expose my point of view as a pretty advanced user of both Riot and Slack.

[ara4n]

ok, we'll make auto text->emoji conversion an optional feature. one possible compromise: how about if it recognises *any* valid emoji sequence, including ;) and lets you either click on the preview or hit tab to turn it into a real emoji?

…

[intelfx]

I just hope that this will be optional and will remain optional forever. And sender-side, of course.

[MightyCreak]

@ara4n It's a bit less conventional but I guess that would do. Isn't it going to be harder to implement though? Anyway, I think that, like every UI/UX dev, the best strategy is to try different ways and get users feedbacks.

Again, I understand you have other fish to fry. I guess it enters in the "nice to have" section, and I guess it's a pretty feasible task for a new comer dev 😉

OT: that makes me think that maybe Riot (and Matrix) could have a wishlist where users could add and vote for their most wanted features (à la https://www.gog.com/wishlist). I know I'm biased as much as the other guy, that's why I think that this kind of wishlist is a very simple way to get users feedbacks and I'm sure that would help you to prioritize tasks.

[aliencq]

Hope it won't consume additional RAM or slow down the composer. I'd vote against it as well.

[MightyCreak]

@intelfx I've repeated that several times in the issue and the comments, don't you worry, this is optional, can even be opt-out if you like, and you'll be able to keep your IRC-like look&feel.

@aliencq no it won't, this is happening while writing, it won't use more than the current emoji system. And honestly, I guess emojis aren't really a problem for RAM... Their are a lot more code to optimize before worrying about emojis.

Come on guys, don't you think you're a bit dishonest here? This feature won't impact you in any way, but it will bring more people to the Matrix community, which, I think, is far more important. I like Riot especially because it assumes that a good UI is important. Honestly, aren't you saying this just because you don't like emojis and prefer pure text based communication systems?

PS: I'm not a "kikoo lol" guy, I'm 34 years old, I simply find emojis to be a very nice addition to text when discussing with someone. When discussing using text, you don't always have the time to use the exact proper terms or to precise textually your mood when writing your thoughts down. Emojis are very good at that. If you don't like them, I respect that, but don't prevent it from being implemented in Riot just because you don't like them, especially since they won't have an impact on you.

[ara4n]

folks, no reason to panic; we're not going to implement anything which slows anything down. having it as opt-in is fine. we'll experiment with the best UI for proposing the emoji replacements. @MightyCreak: thanks for championing this one.

I don't think there's anything more to say here until someone implements this.

[ara4n]

(and this is still closed as it's tracked on the other issue).

[MightyCreak]

@ara4n Thank you!