Is it ok to use graphical emoji instead of the old :word: markup text style?

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1

I have trouble remembering the old-school emoji tags. Other than the ancient text emoji “:D”, “;)” “:(” which were on BBS boards in 1990.

More hard to remember is the word tags.
That start and end with a colon. :aword:

:baseball:, :poop:, :cold_face:\

:baseball: , :poop:, :cold_face:

Also it’s impossible to display the damn tags. I used double-double quotes and the markup text editor interpreted anyway.

I usually enter : and scroll through anything suggested by Discourse.

Is using the graphical emoji on our phone keyboard an acceptable alternative?

I personally like using the contemplative, thinking face :thinking: emoji.

I prefer using :sweat_smile: or :laughing: instead of rhe old-skool LOL

I understand excessive emoji use is not acceptable here. It’s not acceptable to me either. I wouldn’t read a post with eight emoji scattered like turds in it.

emoji is a seasoning, like salt.
It has to be judiciously and thoughtfully applied.

2

Try a backslash to escape them. :cold_face:

ETA: Well, that didn’t work.

3

LOL

I surrender to the all-mighty Discourse mark-up text editor. It whipped my booty.

Anyway, most people are familiar with the emoji, markup tags :aUseFullWord:

There’s at least 30 or more in Discourse.

4

I believe using the emoji on your keyboard and using the :text: style actually display the same emoji after the post submits.

testing:

:smiley: :smiley:

yep. That second one looked very different when I typed it in (honestly, it looks really bad – Microsoft should do better). But Discourse just uses its own emoji.

5

My main concern is whether an unusual emoji not usually supported by Discourse would display correctly on all platforms and screens.

I wouldn’t want an ASCII code or Hex code displayed instead.

Most people have seen a odd symbol in their Word document. A extra line feed, page feed, or line terminator code.

Any of this stuff from the Extended ASCII Table. (character code 128-255)

It would make a post difficult to read.
I normally use standard emoji but wanted to double check with people more knowledgeable with html.

Dec 135

207 87 ‡
* Binary: 10000111
  • HTML Number: �
  • HTML Name: ‡
  • Description: Double dagger|
6

You have a few minutes to edit a post. Every emoji I’ve tried to use has come out fine. But if you try to use one and it doesn’t, just edit your post and remove it. And if you don’t see it in time, you can ask a mod to edit it for you. I make tons of typos. I’m happy to fix other people’s typos on request.

7

The way to add the supported emojis to your post is to click the smily face icon button on the edit box control panel. Then scroll through the big grid of all thousand of them. There is zero need for you to remember the :word: format codes for any of them. I sure remember at least the starting letters of the few I use regularly. But I’d never just type a : then try guessing what the right letters might be for my desired icon.

It is by definition impossible to know that. You have no way of knowing, or controlling, what limitations any given reader’s device may have. Some of us will see any and every Unicode code point correctly. Others will not. You just have to accept that that is the way HTML & browsers, not Discourse specifically, work.

In general, Discourse is totally happy rendering HTML entities like “©” gives ©. It’s equally happy to render things like “⎵” gives ⎵, which is technically “BOTTOM SQUARE BRACKET” but is often used as a visual marker for a space character.

Again what any user sees depends on which fonts they have installed and how complete Unicode support is within those fonts and that OS. But as a general matter nowadays that support is pretty complete.

I sure would not waste a moment thinking about the few holdouts still reading the Dope on an XP machine and IE v4.0. Everybody else can read your Discourse-supported emojis picked off the grid and your plain old &1234; style- Unicode characters (including Unicode emojis) just fine.

8

Thank you @LSLGuy

9

I usually type emojis into discourse by clicking the emoji button on my phone’s keyboard and selecting one there.

:heart::cry::joy::drum::woman_shrugging::blue_circle:

10

I use the phone too.

I started overthinking and worrying if my Samsung phone keyboard has emoji that Discourse doesn’t support.

11

Good point. I was assuming input on a laptop or desktop. Tablets and phones may have even easier ways as keyboard features.

Within Discourse’s dropdown grid of emoji choices, there’s a built-in “frequently used” section at the top. As you use the emoji picker, it’ll figure out which ~dozen ones you use most often. And present those first right up top so pretty soon you don’t need to scroll around the big grid hunting for your usuals; they’re served up right away.

12

It’s not even just a matter of recognizing the code points. Even if a given platform recognizes, say, the “Big Grin” emoji, and gives you a picture that looks like a big grin, it might be a completely different big grin than on some other platform. Which can lead to misunderstandings, when the sender sees a picture that they think represents exactly the thought that they wish to convey, but the receiver sees a picture that seems to convey a completely different thought.

Ironically, nonstandard emojis, like the ones that vBulletin uses, are all image files served up as image files by that server. And so everyone will see exactly the same thing with a nonstandard emoji.

13

The word-based emojis in Discourse are also embedded images, so using those guarantees consistency.

Example:

:grinning_cat:

Becomes

https://emoji.discourse-cdn.com/twitter/grinning_cat.png

14

This is pretty standard on most websites it seems. They implement their own emoji that are consistent. That’s why I suspected Discourse would also do so.

(well, that and the fact I’ve never noticed a Microsoft emoji on this site. They are very distinct.)