Typing :-p then Enter at the end of a message sends a bathing suit emoji

[Elijas]

Bug Description

pressing <Enter> after typing :DD autocompletes it to :wedding: emoji instead of sending a message

Linked issues

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/197

Steps to Reproduce

Signal Desktop v1.26.2 Windows 10 64-bit

Action

Type :DD to text input in a chat and press <Enter>

Actual Result:

• Text field contains an emoji 💒
• No sent message

Expected Result:

• Text field is empty
• A message is sent with contents :DD

Proposals

• Maybe have a one-off exception for laugh emoticons consisting of a colon and D's, e.g. :D, :DD, :ddd, etc.
• Maybe use <Tab> for autocompletion instead of ~~<Space>~~ <Enter> (or at least, give the option in settings to do so).
• (Less preferred) Maybe make an option to disable emoji typeahead autocompletion all-together?

[kenpowers-signal]

• Maybe use <Tab> for autocompletion instead of <Space> (or at least, give the option in settings to do so).

We don't use <Space> for autocompletion, it actually closes the autocomplete menu and allows you to send. You can also use <Esc> to close the autocomplete menu.

[adamcameron]

I hate to comment on a closed issue, but there's def a UX issue to deal with here, IMO. Typing ":-p" and having it being converted to a bathing suit emoji (!) is... getting old very quickly (I only started using Signal this week).

Would be good, btw, if when closing an issue a clear explanation of why the decision was made to not address the issue was provided.

Cheers for the cool software though. Nice work.

[bentolor]

Sorry for also resurrecting this dead fish, …ehhhm … issue, too, @scottnonnenberg @adamcameron @Elijas

But the amount of female bathing suites, I'm sending to my colleagues & family, has become unbearable!

Just typing quickly ;-p leads constantly to this bathing suite icon. I'm afraid that some recipients might misinterpret this even as sexual harassement…

[CatusNosferatus]

I am also one of the affected people here... It's mighty annoying when a chat app breaks your muscle memory like this for no reason. And no, "just use Esc or Space to close the pop-up" is not a viable solution! Why should I re-train my muscle memory and slow down my flow just because some developers of some single chat client decided they want to "be different". And this is not the first time — Signal developers often simply refuse to fix glaring usability issues that don't occur anywhere else in the world just because they don't want to, don't have the time, or think it's a "boring" issue to fix. I get that this is free software and devs are "working for free", but still the attitude is NOT customer friendly... Especially when the issues in question have very obvious and relatively simple solutions that devs refuse to see.

[adamcameron]

I've just worked out what's going on here, and it's def a bug. If I type ":-p", then Signal is deciding that's a match for ":one-piece_swimsuit:", based on the "-p" being a substring of that. However I didn't type "-p", I typed ":-p", and that is NOT a substring of ":one-piece_swimsuit:", so it simply oughtn't auto-complete that, it should instead go "ah well I have no match for this so I guess they actually meant to type ':-p' and I'll just shut-up now". Or some computer-program version of same.

I think here the reported "feature" is actually a request for a work around for the bug, so the issue should be reopened, retasked (and re-described) as a bug, and... well... fixed.

[CatusNosferatus]

Exactly. It's very clearly a bug, like many other bugs reported to Signal dev. team. And like with many other bugs, they just pretend it's a feature. I believe we should create a new bug report for this.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

I was just testing this, and you can type :-p then a space, and continue typing whatever else, no bathing suit emoji. Yes, the menu flashes up for a while, but is that not a reasonable workaround?

[CatusNosferatus]

I was just testing this, and you can type :-p then a space, and continue typing whatever else, no bathing suit emoji. Yes, the menu flashes up for a while, but is that not a reasonable workaround?

No, because emoji is often the last symbol in the message, so your reflexes hit Enter automatically. And what's more important: why should we, users, revert to workarounds to avoid frankly ridiculous bugs on developer's part? Especially when developers are being arrogant and refuse to admit this as a bug.

[CatusNosferatus]

Does anyone know any alternative desktop client to use with Signal protocol? I am getting fed up with such issues, but don't want to ask all my friends to migrate to yet another new chat app just after half a year later when they all moved to Signal because of me.

[bindi]

When can we disable emoji lookup/autocompletion? This is infuriating.

[Elijas]

@kenpowers-signal reconsider reopening the issue due to renewed interest

[merlijn-sebrechts]

Note that other chat solutions with similar autocomplete functions (like Mattermost and Slack) don't suggest anything for :-p.

[Chealer]

@Elijas : I fail to reproduce this with Signal 7.43. Can you?

@scottnonnenberg-signal : please ensure that the ticket's description matches its title.

[bentolor]

@Chealer I can confirm that Signal Desktop 7.44.0 no longer seems to affected by this.

Actually the behaviour seems to have change, that typing : does not immediately trigger the completion popup which caused the effect. I'm not sure which version fixed this.

[CatusNosferatus]

It only took 5 and a half years for Signal devs to acknowledge this issue... AWESOME. Now can you please stop resurrecting this zombie thread?

[bindi]

Signal Desktop 7.54.0 broke everything again, now typing ":DD" ends up with the ladder emoji (🪜). Why does the behavior keep changing?!

[StudioPetrikas]

Anything with : and two letters after it will automatically be converted to the first suggested emoji after hitting enter. This breaks a lot of older-style (IRC-like) text emoticons, like the mentioned :DD.

Even with "automatically convert emoticons" un-ticked.

[bindi]

Hello? Any setting for this?

Still broken as of 7.79.0. Getting kind of annoying to end my messages with a damn ladder emoji.

[Chealer]

Anything with : and two letters after it will automatically be converted to the first suggested emoji after hitting enter. This breaks a lot of older-style (IRC-like) text emoticons, like the mentioned :DD.

No, :yy does not do that.

~~@bindi: What you report is out of this ticket’s scope and should not be tracked here.~~

[StudioPetrikas]

@Chealer because there's no emoji that contains the double yy, while dd is in 'ladder'.

This is 100% a bug, as the app should never convert user-written text without their explicit agreement or an option to disable it (and no, 'Enter', which is used to 'Send' is not agreement)

The fact is :DD, followed by Enter will be converted with a ladder emoji with no option to disable it.

[bindi]

@Chealer sure it does.

[Chealer]

@StudioPetrikas:

@Chealer because there's no emoji that contains the double yy, while dd is in 'ladder'.

I know. I was just pointing out your claim was incorrect.

The fact is :DD, followed by Enter will be converted with a ladder emoji with no option to disable it.

Actually, :DDEscapeEnter will not… but that's offtopic.

@bindi: Whatever point you are trying to make would be clearer with an explanation, indicating which keys are pressed, ~~but please do that in a ticket tracking the issue you experience.~~

License

This comment and any other from myself on this ticket is offered under the terms of CC0 1.0.

[StudioPetrikas]

@Chealer The ticket description doesn't match the title. The OP has corrected the title, but it was reverted.

We are talking about the issue in the description of this ticket.

I can open a new ticket for this bug, that has a description that matches the title if that reduces the confusion.

Re: issue - replacing user input with anything, whether it's a ladder or a bathing suit, without an option to disable it is a bad-UX-hall-of-famer. Expecting the user track what the app does with their input and "Escape" out of it when it does; tracking whether it converts the text to a poop emoji or a squirting eggplant on pressing the "Send" button on the keyboard is a catastrophe waiting to happen. There must be a "don't convert / autocorrect / guesstimate what I mean" tickbox and it has to be ticked by default.

[bindi]

Steps to reproduce: type ":DD<enter>"

Expected result ":DD"

Actual result "🪜"

Any two-letter ":xx" combination where "xx" MATCHES an existing emoji, like ":DD" matches "laDDer", or ":PP" will match "man_tiPPing_hand", ":EE" will match "face_with_pEEking_eye", and so on.

Same steps to reproduce as in the OP but it's changed from wedding-emoji to the ladder-emoji. It was briefly fixed in 2021 but then broken again in 7.54.0 (maybe earlier, but around that time).

@Chealer If you still can't understand what we're saying, I feel like you're being annoying just for the fun of it.

[Chealer]

@bindi: Please assume good faith

Thank you very much @StudioPetrikas and @bindi I apologize for my comments earlier today.

@Chealer The ticket description doesn't match the title. The OP has corrected the title, but it was reverted.

@StudioPetrikas: This ticket was retitled several times, but none of the changes were reverted.

Thank you for bringing my attention to that, though, since the title's history is quite relevant:

1. Option to disable Emoji Typeahead - can't use emoticon :DD (original, on Aug 17, 2019)
2. Typing :-p then Enter at the end of a message sends a bathing suit emoji (retitled by @scottnonnenberg-signal on Nov 9, 2021)

These 2 titles refer to 3 issues:

1. The absence of an option to disable “Emoji Typeahead” (related to the next 2)
2. “:DD” being involuntarily converted to other emojis (at least 💒 and―most recently, a ladder (🪜)).
3. “:-p” (and according to @bentolor, “;-p”) being incorrectly converted to a bathing suit emoji

From these, only #3, which is the one the title tracks, was solved.

To make matters worse:

1. The description no longer matches the title.
2. Both the reporter and Scott Nonnenberg (who retitled) are MIA.
3. Signal has changed a lot during this ticket's lifetime, transforming some of these issues.

All of this makes this ticket fairly dysfunctional. Therefore, I would:

1. Strongly recommend those who consider issue #1 to be problematic to report it in a dedicated ticket.
2. Recommend those affected by issue #2 to:
   1. Report it clearly in a fresh ticket
   2. Discard this ticket
3. Ask anyone doing any of these 2 to notify this ticket about the new ticket(s).

[adamcameron]

I'm glad I don't use :DD. That would annoy me. BTW I just noticed github's text editor (ie the thing I am typing into now) also has the same behaviour!

So there's precedent for the behaviour, but the pedant in me still thinks it's a bug: the sequence :DD does not appeal in the shortcode of :ladder:. The thing should ONLY suggest a substitution if what's typed is an exact substring of a shortcode. eg: typing :dd would only offer the emoji for :ddrraaggoonn: (you know what I mean ;-). as :dd does in fact occur in that string.

HOWEVER. As there is precedent for this behaviour out in the wild... maybe this issue should be dealt with via a "[shrug] that's how things work, folks", and we move on.

I shure would like an option to switch off emoji substitution completely though. I never ever ever want something I've typed to be turning into an emoji. If I want an emoji, I am happy to use the emoji picker thing.

[StudioPetrikas]

@adamcameron a couple of points:

• It's OK in a text window, where you are expected to format your message
• You do not hit Enter to reply in GitHub
• Different pace
• This issue is not explicable on the mobile app

As you said, you would not want that to happen. Just because other places do it, doesn't mean that this awful behavior should be mirrored everywhere. Almost never use emoji, personally. Having no option to turn them off, yet alone semi-automatically replacing my input is terrible to a point, where I avoid using the desktop app altogether.