Why are smilies still used instead of emojis?

[JackieChun]

With all modern browsers supporting emojis pretty much universally out of the box, why are smilies still used in XenForo? Why not insert Unicode characters for corresponding emojis and be compatible with the entire web instead of using custom images, which risks future compatibility issues and requires maintenance?

 

[Paul B]

Site owners have a choice - they can choose to remove smileys if they want.

 

[Kevin]

You mean like this..... https://xenforo.com/xf2-docs/manual/unicode/

EDIT: Ninja'ed by Brogan Bot

 

[JackieChun]

That link only tells you how to enable emoji support in the database. I am talking actually integrating emojis within XenForo. So that when you click the smiley button in the composer toolbar, you get an overlay with a choice of emojis instead of smileys.

 

[Paul B]

It already does that.

 

[RobParker]

Emojis aren’t consistent across devices/platforms and some look horrendous. I’d much prefer images.

 

[JackieChun]

It already does that.

Thanks, testing it now.

After converting the database, I now have both smilies and emojis in the composer toolbar. Smilies are much bigger than emojis, and there is overlap. Not sure if that's the best setup for users. Native emoji look even smaller than rendered ones (tested both desktop on and mobile). Will the smilies be gone from this menu if they are deleted individually from admincp?

 

[Paul B]

Will the smilies be gone from this menu if they are deleted individually from admincp?

Yes.

 

[JackieChun]

Well, I've deleted all smilies from the admin panel, and now the toolbar button has disappeared completely. I created a fake "test" smiley (and hid it from the user), and the button came back. Emoji users obviously want that button in their toolbar too, so this seems like a bug.

 

[JackieChun]

Also, none of the usual shortcodes (e.g. colon & parentheses etc) translate to emoji. Once the smilies are deleted, you are stuck with punctuation marks. So basically, what I said in the original post. XenForo needs much better integration with emoji.

 

[Martok]

Also, none of the usual shortcodes (e.g. colon & parentheses etc) translate to emoji. Once the smilies are deleted, you are stuck with punctuation marks. So basically, what I said in the original post. XenForo needs much better integration with emoji.

Just to note that entering a :) isn't universal for entering a slight smile emoji. On both XenForo and Discord, to enter one of these you use :slight_smile:. On Twitter neither works (as far as I can tell), you have to use their emoji picker to enter the emoji. On Facebook :) does work but :slight_smile: doesn't. On WhatsApp :) doesn't work, nor does :slight_smile: but :-) does. So there doesn't seem to be a universal standard and as such.