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verified publisher icon GaZaTu
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Linux XServer emoji picker

x11-emoji-picker

A dialog / emoji picker inspired by the Windows 10 emoji picker written for Linux systems that use XServer.

Works for my use case most of the time. 😅

Disclaimer: Donk code ahead FDM

Motivation 🤔

I switched from Windows 10 to Linux at work and missed filling my emails with emojis. ~~(the KDE version we use doesn't have the builtin emoji picker yet)~~ (turns out that the KDE emoji picker only copies emojis to clipboard anyway so yea fuck that)

Screenshots 😮

dialog with search result dialog with search result

dialog with full emoji list dialog with full emoji list

dialog with github aliases dialog with github aliases

Installation 😉

Download the install.sh and run it. It downloads and installs either a .deb (Ubuntu, Debian), a .rpm (openSUSE, Fedora) or the .AppImage (location: /usr/bin/emoji-picker.AppImage).

  • Terminal: wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GaZaTu/x11-emoji-picker/master/install.sh && sh install.sh
  • Installing nightly build: sh install.sh -r tags/nightly-build

Otherwise look at the following options:

"I use Arch btw": run yay -S x11-emoji-picker-git.

Debian: Download a -debian-*.deb from /releases and install it.

  • Terminal: sudo apt install ./x11-emoji-picker-*.deb

Ubuntu: Download a -ubuntu-*.deb from /releases and install it.

  • Terminal: sudo apt install ./x11-emoji-picker-*.deb

openSUSE: Download a -opensuse-*.rpm from /releases and install it.

  • Terminal: sudo zypper install ./x11-emoji-picker-*.rpm

Fedora: Download a -fedora-*.rpm from /releases and install it.

  • Terminal: sudo dnf install ./x11-emoji-picker-*.rpm

Gentoo Ebuild: Third-party ebuilds provided in https://gpo.zugaina.org/x11-plugins/x11-emoji-picker. Run sudo eselect repository enable <ebuild provider>, sudo emerge --sync <ebuild provider> and sudo emerge x11-emoji-picker.

Other: Download the .AppImage from /releases, add executable permission (chmod +x x11-emoji-picker-*.AppImage) and run it (Read the usage instructions below).

Note: There are nightly releases aswell now which are rebuilt on every push to master

Building 🤓

This is a CMake project so you need cmake, make and some c++ compiler like gcc.

Dependencies

  • Qt5 (core, gui, widgets)
  • ICU (uc)
  • xdotool

Arch: sudo pacman -S qt5-base icu xdotool

Debian: sudo apt install qtbase5-dev libicu-dev libxdo-dev

openSUSE: sudo zypper install libqt5-qtbase-devel libicu-devel xdotool-devel

CMake

  • mkdir -p build
  • cd build
  • cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
  • make

Codegen

I committed the generated code so you won't have to run any scripts.

  • script .scripts/create-emoji-map.js to create src/emojis.hpp and src/emojis.cpp
  • script .scripts/create-emoji-aliases-ini.js to create src/aliases/github-emojis.ini

Usage 🧐

First you should add the emoji-picker executable as a keybind (however you do that in your window manager); I use meta+. just like the windows keybind.

Note: The executable path should be /usr/bin/emoji-picker if installed with AUR/.deb/.rpm/make install, which means it'll be on your $PATH.

KDE: https://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials/hotkeys

i3: https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#keybindings

The emoji picker will always write to the window that was active before starting the application. You have to restart it if you want to write to a different window.

After the emoji picker opened you can just begin typing to search for an emoji. Emojis that start with the text you entered will be shown below the text input. You can navigate these by using the arrow keys.

When you've selected your emoji you can press the return key to write it.

Keybinds

  • Arrow keys => navigate through shown emojis
  • Return => write emoji to previously active window
  • Shift+Return => write emoji to previously active window and close emoji picker
  • F1 => show recently used emojis (default view)
  • F2 => show list of all emojis (if you press this while searching, the view will jump to the currently selected emoji aswell)
  • F4 => close emoji picker and open settings file
  • F5 => toggle input method for current process (press [F5 and then Return] a few times if emojis don't get written into the window; there are 4 different modes)
  • Tab => toggle between emoji and kaomoji

AppImage

Disclaimer: Running the .AppImage directly can be slow AF (about 1 sec on my machine instead of 0.1 sec).

I recommend running it (in the keybind) using the following command instead:

NO_CLEANUP=true path/to/x11-emoji-picker-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

Note: This is much faster because it extracts itself to /tmp which makes subsequent runs have almost the same performance as if you ran the executable directly.

Settings

The settings file should be located at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gazatu.xyz/emoji-picker.ini. (usually in ~/.config)

  • [General] | activateWindowBeforeWritingByDefault => true to activate windows by default before writing to them
  • [General] | aliasExactMatching => true to only show aliased emojis when the search matches completely
  • [General] | customQssFilePath => custom styling (colors and shit) for the emoji picker (refer to src/main.qss for examples); useful if you don't like the dark theme
  • [General] | enableEmojiIncludesSearch => true to enable sub-string search (for example: joy to find face_with_tears_of_joy); you need to enter 3 or more characters
  • [General] | gendersDisabled => true if you only want to see gender neutral emojis (jobs or family or w/e)
  • [General] | hideInputMethod => true if you don't want to see the input method
  • [General] | localeKey => the emoji translation you want to use (en, de, fr, nl, da, it, pt, es, sv, pl, hr, cs, fi, el, hu) or empty if you want to use english with underscores
  • [General] | maxEmojiVersion => set this to for example 12 to exclude emojis released after that or -1 to show all emojis
  • [General] | openAtMouseLocation => true if you want to open the emoji picker dialog at the current mouse cursor
  • [General] | skinTonesDisabled => true if you only want to see skin-tone neutral emojis (hands or jobs or family or w/e)
  • [General] | surroundAliasesWithColons => true if you want emoji aliases to be in colons (:joy: for example)
  • [General] | swapEnterAndShiftEnter => true if you want Return to close the window
  • [General] | useClipboardHackByDefault => true to write emojis using ctrl+v by default (qt5 apps for example)
  • [General] | useSystemEmojiFont => true if you want to use the system emoji font instead of the bundled twemoji images
  • [General] | useSystemEmojiFontWidthHeuristics => true if you want to scale/hide unsupported emojis (may lead to false positives)
  • [General] | useSystemQtTheme => true if you want to use the system qt theme (not recommended, usually only works with kde i think)
  • [General] | windowOpacity => how seethrough the emoji picker is supposed to be (0 = invisible)
  • [activateWindowBeforeWritingExceptions] => list of executables that should be an exception to the [General] | activateWindowBeforeWritingByDefault setting
  • [emojiAliasesIniFilePaths] => list of custom emoji codes (refer to src/aliases/github-emojis.ini for examples); points to the builtin list of github emojis by default (https://github.com/ikatyang/emoji-cheat-sheet); also points to the builtin list of gitmoji emojis by default (https://gitmoji.dev/)
  • [useClipboardHackExceptions] => list of executables that should be an exception to the [General] | useClipboardHackByDefault setting

Notes

If emojis do not get written into your window: try adding that executable to the [activateWindowBeforeWritingExceptions] array or to the [useClipboardHackExceptions] array. (at runtime also possible using F5)

If the dialog is too smol for you: put QT_SCALE_FACTOR=float in front of the command. (example: QT_SCALE_FACTOR=1.25 emoji-picker)

Some things such as recently used emojis are written to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/gazatu.xyz/emoji-picker/cache.ini. (usually in ~/.cache)

If you enabled useSystemEmojiFont to display emojis inside the emoji picker: it's possible that your installed emoji font does not support all emojis (for example: at the time of writing noto-fonts-emoji does not support heart_mending) which will likely result in some emojis being either invisible or displayed as 2 separate emojis. To "fix" this behavior you can either set maxEmojiVersion to the version supported by your emoji font (for example: 12) or set useSystemEmojiFontWidthHeuristics to true (which is the default) to automatically figure it out.

Regarding kaomoji mode:

  • Check src/kaomojis.hpp for a list of kaomoji
  • F2 (list of all emoji (or kaomoji in this case)) does not work yet
  • useSystemEmojiFont=true does not work with kaomoji mode
  • required font localizations:
    • cjk (tc, sc, kr, jp)
    • kannada
    • thai
    • tibetan
    • sinhala

Defaults

[General]
activateWindowBeforeWritingByDefault=false
aliasExactMatching=false
customQssFilePath=
enableEmojiIncludesSearch=true
gendersDisabled=false
hideInputMethod=false
localeKey=
maxEmojiVersion=-1
openAtMouseLocation=false
skinTonesDisabled=false
startInKaomojiMode=false
surroundAliasesWithColons=true
swapEnterAndShiftEnter=false
useClipboardHackByDefault=false
useSystemEmojiFont=false
useSystemEmojiFontWidthHeuristics=true
useSystemQtTheme=false
windowOpacity=0.9

[activateWindowBeforeWritingExceptions]
1\processName=code
2\processName=code-oss
3\processName=chrome
4\processName=chromium
5\processName=kate
6\processName=brave
size=5

[emojiAliasesIniFilePaths]
1\path=:/aliases/github-emojis.ini
2\path=:/aliases/gitmoji-emojis.ini
size=2

[useClipboardHackExceptions]
1\processName=chatterino
2\processName=kate
size=2

Notes 📝

Executable tested on:

  • Manjaro KDE with KDE clipboard manager
  • openSUSE KDE with KDE clipboard manager
  • Debian i3 with parcellite
  • Arch i3 with parcellite

AppImage tested on:

  • Manjaro KDE
  • openSUSE KDE (built on this)
  • Debian i3
  • Arch i3

Contributors 🤗

License 😈

Project licensed under the MIT license: LICENSE

Emoji graphics licensed by Twitter under CC-BY 4.0 at https://github.com/twitter/twemoji

Emoji list and translations licensed by Unicode at https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr

Some Qt code licensed by Qt under BSD: src/flowlayout.h, src/flowlayout.cpp

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Linux XServer emoji picker

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