🚦🚥 ... ok it works 🌋
A super-simple #emoji keyboard for #x11.
Well, I *did* have to fiddle with the keymap.
And I had to add delays 🤯👹 (otherwise there are races between keymap changes and keyboard events).
And I had to misuse the #Xtest extension, cause applications ignore "synthetic" events. 🫥😣
But hey, it works 🕺
Now needs some basic, uhm, "features" (like recently used, like search by name).
Fixed build with #Qt6 now (and defaulting to that, but #Qt5 still supported).
I also added a README.md explaining the uglyness of what it does with #X11 / #xcb. But again, hey, it works 🙈🍄🐸🦉 (lots of emojis for no purpose, sorry 😂)
The looks with completely unconfigured #Qt6 tell me it needs yet another feature: Configurable scale factor. These emojis are just TOO small 🧌
First "features" added ...
* Can now select 5 "scale factors" for the size of the emojis, "Tiny" being the same size as default window text (which is normally indeed tiny for emojis)
* Auto-stores these settings as well as the window dimensions (not position!)
#qXmoji v0.1 and v0.2 released 😎
Functionally the same (just clickable emojis in tabbed groups, display size and wait-time for restoring the X11 keyboard map configurable), but v0.2 has correct README info and build-fixes, so Qt tools are found without fiddling with make variables 🙈 so, use v0.2 😎
🥳 #qXmoji v0.3 released 🍻🍕
Now there are the "basic" features you'd expect from an emoji keyboard:
✅ Search as you type
✅ Recently used
Found a small bug, #xcb requests were synchronously checked, but this only works when calling the _checked() flavor of them ... 🙈
Fixed in #qXmoji v0.4
Also added a clear button to the search field, this seems somewhat useful 😉
Thinking about what to include in #qxmoji v0.5. Many questions in mind...
I'll definitely "outscope" #l10n. Would be nice, but would also mean to import localized emoji names somehow (and, where to find them? 🤔)
For now:
🔹Unify persisting settings. history and window size are persisted on exit, wait time and display scale on every change. Not sure which one is the "better" approach...
🔹Should it be "single instance"? Should it offer an option for a "tray icon"?
🔹Add an "About dialog". Cause that's what you always do. 🙈
🔹Maybe find a way to speed up initial creation of the Emoji buttons?
🔹Anything else ...❓
Please comment if you have thoughts to share 🙃
#qXmoji v0.5 released!
https://github.com/Zirias/qxmoji/releases/tag/v0.5
This brings a *few* of the ideas I had:
🔹Add a "single instance" mode (configurable)
🔹Add a "tray icon" (configurable behavior)
🔹Add an "About" dialog
🔹Enforce using Qt's "xcb" platform
🔹Fix detaching on startup, add a flag (-d) to prevent it
Pretty usable as it is I hope ... although one could of course improve a lot (but have you heard of the 80-20-rule?) 🫣
Screenshot from #KDE this time, no particular reason, I'm still running #fvwm here 😎
Working on improving performance for the next #qXmoji release. This will require pre-generating stuff during build (different string formats and probably static hashtables), so doing this in #POSIX #shell script isn't feasible any more, therefore working on a data generation tool in #C now.
I'm amazed how #lldb shows me my #Emoji structs while debugging this 😂
It seems fighting #Qt for better #performance can be a lost cause 😞 ... after a LOT of refactoring (finally even generating QStringLiteral entries in my #emoji data tables), setting an emoji as text on nearly 4000 QLabel instances is still slow as hell -- but now, compiling the emoji data is horribly slow as well (QStringLiteral doing C++ template "magic" ...) 🙈
(And no, threading won't help here, Qt Widgets can't be used from worker threads ...)
At least I could speed up serializing/deserializing the emoji history. The new format is also surprisingly user-readable 😂
Oh boy #Qt can get *nasty* if you need something "unusual" (like, initialize 4000 Labels all on startup 🎶🤫).
So, I can't fix performance of this, but I can "defer" it with a hacky hidden class like this.
It uses #Qtimer for a 1ms pause between every single emoji, which was the *only* way I found to have Qt still process other events 🤯 ... prefers the currently visible tab for initialization ... and "commits suicide" when done.
I'm proud and ashamed at the same time 🥴
Felix Palmen 📯
