No way to send smileys / emoticons when using 3rd party keyboard on Android 4.4

[robert7k]

Using Android 4.4 on a Nexus 4 together with Swift Key (a third party keyboard), I have no way to send emoticons using TextSecure. There's no emoticons icon on the left part of the textbox. The return button of Swift Key doesn't offer to add graphical emoticons as the stock Android keyboard allows.

On a Android 2.3, the left part of the text box contains a button which lets you add smileys. Could this be added to newer Android devices running another keyabord than stock keyboard to allow sending emoticons?

[sagischwarz]

@robert7k Yes, I found this to be a little bit annoying, too. As a workaround (until TextSecure gets it's own emoticon support), you can install the SwiftKey Beta version, which finally comes with a huge set of graphical emoticons: http://beta.swiftkey.net/

[jk779]

Off Topic: @sagischwarz OMG finally they did it. I loved SwiftKey but the lack of emojis was always so extremly annoying! I'm downloading the beta, THANK YOU for that information :yellow_heart:

[Phyioa]

I think it's actually not third party keyboards in general. You might have a problem with Swift Key, but I'm using Touch Pal, which is a third party keyboard too, and the emoticons are working just fine. Maybe it's a certain problem with Swift Key itself.

[sagischwarz]

@jk779 You're welcome. @IlonkaPingel I think it just depends on the keyboard. If the keyboard offers the emoticons (like the stock keyboard or Touch Pal), you're lucky. Other messaging apps have their own buttons for emoticons, so that they are independent of the keyboard in use.

[mcginty]

@robert7k I have the emoticon icon in the TextView being hidden in KitKat due to its great support of Emoji, which surpasses what we provide. Anything less than 4.4 will have the icon available. I can understand why that's confusing, but it was in the name of avoiding redundancy and confusion with multiple Emoji providers. Let me know if you disagree, we can consider adding it back for all TextSecure users regardless of Android version.

[Strubbl]

@mcginty Maybe you can display the emoticon in the TextView if swiftkey is installed? Or more general if googles keyboard is not used? Or make an option for that.

[mcginty]

@Strubbl, I'm not aware of any non-hack way to detect what keyboard is being used for input. As @sagischwarz noted, SwitKey Beta has great Emoji support (I've tested on that, works very well), so it seems more like the issue is with the Keyboard writers not releasing at a rate that keeps up with Android's advancements.

[lablans]

In my opinion, integrated emoticon support is the way to go: It works (the same way!) with every keyboard and looks the same on every device (regardless of iOS/Android versions and manufacturer "enhancements"). Smileys on my phone and my girlfriend's look totally different, and some pictures are even missing (they display as two blocks).

In issue #592, jondo proposes to integrate the set of emoji from the Telegram client (GPLv2+). That could solve this issue as well. Telegram's makers have made a wise choice to offer the same emoticon set as WhatsApp.

[Strubbl]

I like @vascorppor 's idea, too. That might be the best approach to get a consistent smiley experience ;)

[sagischwarz]

Integrated emoticons would also solve #846.

[alien0matic]

I agree with @vascorppor . There should be a build in set of smileys. Otherwise they are displayed differently on every client depending on what has been installed and some smileys doesn't even show up.

[shaaati]

+1 to @vascorppor' posting. Integrated smileys on all Android versions would be great. I found it really irritating to not have a smiley-icon while some of my friends have one, until I found this issue. I can imagine this being something that irritates less tech-savvy people even more and people tend to not like things that they do not understand.

Additionally, smileys seem to be a major aspect when choosing a messenger app (a thing I cannot understand), just read through Play Store reviews of different products that don't have much of them.

[L3st3r]

I agree with @vascorppor and @shaaati: Smileys are for many users more important than probably most of us think. There is a reason why Telegram shows its smileys so prominently in one of its preview pictures in the Play Store.

[robert7k]

@mcginty How about showing the emoticons button in Android 4.4 if "Enable Enter key" is checked?

[hunleyd]

+1 to @vascorppor' posting.

[l-mb]

Another one in favor of @vascorppor. Having the same set of emoji everywhere would be welcome. I'm using SlideIt, and that doesn't have them builtin either. I'd welcome a toggle option to make that appear.

[cortriga]

+1 to @vascorppor's idea. I use Swype and the emoji icon used to be on the left of the text bar. I miss this feature.

[L3st3r]

@mcginty:

@robert7k I have the emoticon icon in the TextView being hidden in KitKat due to its great support of Emoji, which surpasses what we provide. Anything less than 4.4 will have the icon available. I can understand why that's confusing, but it was in the name of avoiding redundancy and confusion with multiple Emoji providers. Let me know if you disagree, we can consider adding it back for all TextSecure users regardless of Android version.

Couldn't we just deactivate the emoticon-key on the keyboard? This way we would have the same smileys independent of the device/keyboard and we would avoid redundancy. Other messengers seem to go the same way. But I don't know if this could lead to problems with SMS, when the receiving device doesn't support our smileys. In that case we could only use this solution for PUSH-contacts.

I also support adding more smileys like @jondo suggested over at #592 (just don't want to make 2 comments about nearly the same issue).

[Waboru]

Please add smileys, my recommandation is following:

Add a smiley button for Android 4.4 devices on the left part of the textbox which contains:

• Recent smileys (the last used ones)
• Android smileys (All Android smileys from 4.3+, they're great)
• iOS smileys (since it's gettings iOS support)

[cygairko]

I am also using Swiftkey and I like the textsmileys and don't miss the emoji button. When you consider implementing emoji support, please make it as an option as Strubbl mentioned before. I can understand, that one would like to have smileys to be parsed to icons, but others do not.

[Blaimi]

+1 to @vascorppor's posting

It's the Best solution to get a constant experience across platforms and makes it easy for new users to switch from other messengers.

[jk779]

I'd like a easy solution like other messengers do, as suggested above by @Waboru. Here's an example (Threema): http://i.imgur.com/ukw7FrB.png

That would keep the experience consistent on all OS versions.

[mcginty]

I'm becoming convinced we should take Emoji into our own hands since relying on platform support is an unreliable headache.

Unfortunately I don't think iOS emoji is in the cards, Telegram does use apple's emoji font but it's not openly licensed and is risky. Thankfully the emoji pack in Android is Apache 2.0 licensed so we can pick that up.

[johanw666]

I have the same issue on Android 4.4.4 using Hackers Keyboard. It actually does show an emoji button with TextSecure but the only thing that does is to print :-) which does not get translated to a picture. I consider it irritating that I don't have emojies on 4.4.4 while my old phone on 4.2.2 has them, so please remove the "special treatment" of 4.4. Soon please, it doesn't seem a big change. 2.1.5?

[McLoo]

@johanw666 it also prints :-( and others after long tap ;-) It seems as if hackers don't need fancy colored emojis, which is why they didn't implement it in Hacker's Keyboard... Depending on the 3rd party app you do have emojis e.g. Swiftkey (no ad)

[johanw666]

Swiftkey does a lot I DON'T want from a keyboard: autocorrection (one of the first things I learned to switch off when starting with Android, it doesn't work well when you use different input languages in messages) and swipe (never learned how to use that), and it doesn't have some keys I require.

Make it at least configurable wether we want internal or external smileys in 4.4 (and/or below, why make sush a distinction anyway?). Setting a default depending on version doesn't matter to me as long as I can change it.

[eikowagenknecht]

Just a quick copy of my comment from #592:

Latest Swype still has no Emoji support. So no Emojis at all with Swype and TextSecure on Android 4.4+ :-(

I tried to convince some friends to switch from WhatsApp/Threema to TextSecure and there are exactly two things that prevent them from switching:

• No Emojis (they all want the Apple/WhatsApp/Threema/... Emojis because they are used to it) and
• No delivery reports

While Emojis might by not too important to most tech savvy people (including me), I think TS could get a lot more users by supporting Emojis everywhere. I know that there are licence problems with the Apple Emojis on the Android Platform and understand that Open Whispersystems doesn't want to get into trouble. But WhatsApp/Threema/Telegram have been using the Apple Emojis for a long time now, it's not like Apple seems to actively do something against it.

Maybe making TS extendable with icon packs from third party developers could be a solution to this? So whoever is not afraid of possible licence violations could just go ahead and publish such an icon pack? I really think it would help to convince more users to switch over from the other messengers.

[alexanderhaensch]

I think integrated emoticons is needed. Many people use whatsapp because it has a rich icon set. Textsecure needs it too.

[irosaurus]

I also agree that at least an option for enable/disable emoji/smiley button is needed. I have a Samsung device with android 4.4 and use the Samsung keyboard. There is also no emoji button, only one for :-), ;-) and so on. The issue is the same on multiple Samsung devices with Samsung keyboard (standard setting) enabled.

As smileys are really important to the average user you should enable the emoji button by default. Otherwise a lot of people will only delete the app because of the missing smileys. I'm a techie, but it also took me some time to figure out why the button was gone suddenly ;)

And especially for female users, this is a no go and I really try to spread Textsecure, but if they see no smileys, the app is deleted in seconds.

So please consider adding a emoji button for 4.4 devices.

Besides that, I really appreciate your work and what you already did with textsecure!

Cheers iro