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

Wayland ⚠

If you're looking for an emoji picker for Wayland you may consider using im-emoji-picker.

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 😮

Twemoji and Kaomoji support (EndeavourOS with KDE):

System emoji font support (openSUSE 15.1 with KDE):

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.

• repo: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/x11-emoji-picker-git
• yay: https://github.com/Jguer/yay#installation
• manjaro: https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository

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)
• xdotool

Arch: sudo pacman -S qt5-base xdotool

Debian: sudo apt install qtbase5-dev libxdo-dev

openSUSE: sudo zypper install libqt5-qtbase-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.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
• 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 MRU, list 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] | closeOnFocusLost => true to close the window after it lost focus
• [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] | gendersDisabled => true if you only want to see gender neutral emojis (jobs or family or w/e)
• [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] | saveKaomojiInMRU => true to include kaomoji in the list of recently used emojis
• [General] | scaleFactor => 1.25 for example if you want the emoji picker to be bigger
• [General] | skinTonesDisabled => true if you only want to see skin-tone neutral emojis (hands or jobs or family or w/e)
• [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
• [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: set scaleFactor or 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:

• required font localizations:
  • cjk (tc, sc, kr, jp)
  • kannada
  • thai
  • tibetan
  • sinhala

Defaults

[General]
activateWindowBeforeWritingByDefault=false
closeOnFocusLost=false
customQssFilePath=
gendersDisabled=false
localeKey=
maxEmojiVersion=-1
openAtMouseLocation=false
saveKaomojiInMRU=false
scaleFactor=
skinTonesDisabled=false
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=6

[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 🤗

• zneix 😊👌

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