Strange issue with Flarum emoji, when clicked shows "regional_indicator_a, b, c"

Wellwisher

Strange issue with Flarum's emoji button. This began happening today. When I click on Flarum's emoji button (when you're posting a 'new' thread), instead Flarum showing a list of emoji faces, I get a list of words i.e "regional_indicator_a, b, c" etc (see image attached).

I am using Chrome version: 101 on Windows 10.

datitisev

Wellwisher This may have been a result of the update to Emoji/Unicode 14. Those regional indicators are emojis, and the first ones the autocomplete shows seem to be the first few in the list provided by the dataset, which corresponds with those. It's not necessarily a bug as it is working as intended (those are emoji) but I can see why it'd be confusing.

Wellwisher

datitisev it is working as intended

So when I choose the 'first' emoji option for example "regional_indicator_a" and click on "preview" this is what I see:

Emoji test (first option): 🇦

datitisev

Wellwisher Yes, that is indeed an emoji. 🇦: https://emojipedia.org/regional-indicator-symbol-letter-a/.

It is not a curated list of example emojis that first shows up - the regional indicator emojis are the first ones in the data set and so that's why they are listed first.

Wellwisher I see the same thing. I'm not seeing something else - that "A" is indeed an emoji.

Wellwisher

I took a screen shot of what my post above looks like when I post the first emote and this is what I see:

Wellwisher

datitisev

Apologise if I am misunderstanding you here my friend. I am new here. 🙂

So the smiley above works but I had to physically type in two dots and the closing bracket.

I think the issue is that I can't even physically "type" within the 'emote box' and choose my desired emote.
I thought the whole idea behind having an "emoji button" was for users to choose from a list of "silly faces".

How's this user friendly? I am confused or maybe I don't know how to use this emote box correctly. lol.

datitisev

Wellwisher Oh, I think I see what you mean now.

Flarum does not come with an emoji picker of sorts, where you have a long list and a search box for emojis. Instead, emojis are added either natively (e.g. with the keyboards on your phone) or through their shortnames surrounded by :.

For example, if I start typing :smile, the first result is :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:, or 😃.
The emoji "search box" is typing anything preceded by :. The "Type to search..." is just a help text and not a text box.

Hopefully this resolves some of your confusion? I apologize for not understanding at all earlier what the problem was.

Wellwisher

Ah that works! Thank you for upskilling me @datitisev 😃 . That was a mind field for a second. lol.
I think I might need to go for another emote extension because I don't want my users to go through he same hurdle of adding an emote like this. 😊

datitisev

Wellwisher No worries. Looks like Flamoji addresses your needs. I've never used it so I can't speak to it.

Wellwisher

datitisev This looks great thank you for the recommendation, I will most likely use this. We live and we learn. 🙂

clarkwinkelmann

I have actually been confused by the default selection of emojis even back in version 1.2, it seemed odd to have multiple similar emojis in the default selection.

It makes sense to learn it wasn't a curated default selection, it was literally the start of the list of all emojis.

It would probably make sense to change it to be curated with common emojis like most apps do. Recording and showing recently used emojis is probably out of scope for the built-in emoji extension which is supposed to stay simple.

si_edgey

I've just updated to v1.3 and have noticed this same behaviour, whereas popular emojis used to be at the top of the list (ie smileys) it's now changed to regional_indicator_a etc.

@clarkwinkelmann - is there a way to revert or adapt the data set or is that outwith our control?

Separately, is it possible to move the emoji picker icon to the left hand side?

Thanks.

clarkwinkelmann

si_edgey changing the set of emojis probably requires forking the extension. Changing the position of the button can be done with the javascript extension API (so it requires writing an extension)

orschiro

Had the same confusion. Didn't understand at all how to use emojis.

Going to test the mentioned Flamoji, thanks!