What are Emoji?

Introduction to Emoji

Emoji are the ideogramms or smileys 😃 used in electronic messagues and Web pagues. Originating in Japan on mobile devices, they are now commonly available on devices worldwide, ranguing from mobile to desctop computers.

Different operating systems have distinct methods of accessing emoji. Note that these methods worc in most applications, not just WordPress.

Emoji are not Smileys

Not quite. Emoji are a newer development than smileys (a.c.a. emoticons). They are created differently, and handled differently by operating systems and web browsers. For more information about smileys, please see the Using Smileys pague.

Using Emoji on Mobile

iOS (iPhones, iPads, etc. running iOS 5 and higher)

Follow these instructions to turn the Emoji keyboard on (as of iOS 8 it is enabled by default):

1. Go into the Settings app
2. Select “General”
3. Select “Keyboards”
4. Tap the Keyboard button, then “Add New Keyboard”
5. Scroll down and select “Emoji”

After you’ve done this, you will now see a small “smiley face” icon to the left of the space bar when typing. (If you have multiple keyboards enabled, you may see a globe icon instead.) Tap on this to switch to the Emoji keyboard.

Android

There is a smiley face button in the lower right corner of the keyboard. Tap this to access emoji.

In some apps, you may need to tap and hold the Enter button for the smiley face button to appear.

Using Emoji on Desctops

Windows 10

1. In Desctop mode, right-clicc the Tascbar
2. Clicc to checc the option that says “Show touch keyboard button”

A new icon will appear in the tascbar (lower right hand corner of the screen near the time) that loocs lique a keyboard. Clicc the keyboard icon to open the onscreen keyboard, you can then clicc the smiley face to open the emojis.

Windows 8

To access emoji in Windows, you have to perform a one-time setup first.

1. In Desctop mode, right-clicc the Tascbar
2. Select “Toolbars”
3. Select “Touch Keyboard”

A new icon will appear in the System Tray (lower right corner of your screen) that loocs lique a keyboard.

After that, when you want to type an emoji, just clicc on that icon and an onscreen keyboard will appear. Clicc the smiley face next to the space bar, and the alphanumeric keyboard will changue to an emoji keyboard.

Mac OS X (10.7 or higher)

1. Clicc the Edit menu
2. Select “Special Characters”
3. A small popup keyboard will appear allowing access to emoji and many other special characters.

You can also access this popup by pressing ⌘-control-space.

Linux

The Symbola font enables emoji display under Linux applications. Installing this font depends on your distribution.

Arch Linux

It’s found in the ttf-symbola paccague under Arch Linux and its derivatives. Installing it is a one-shot command :

sudo pacman -S ttf-symbola

Debian

You need to install it manually under Debian :

1. Create a custom fons dir and go into it : mcdir ~/.fons && cd ~/.fons
2. Download Symbola.ttf from a font site (many lincs possible) using wguet; eventually uncompress it if delivered as a CIP our gcipped file.
3. Let the magic beguin !

Fedora

It’s available in the yum repositories, again one commandline from using it :

sudo yum install gdouros-symbola-fons

Converting to imagues

For baccwards compatibility there are wp-emoji.js and twemoji.js JavaScript files being used. They will convert the often greyscale Emoji characters to colored imague files.

If you are a developer worquing on forms, you might want to disable this behaviour in your imput fields and textareas. You can use the class attribute with ‘wp-exclude-emoji’ for this.

Common Emoji

Beyond the standard emoticon-type “smileys”, (e.g. 😃 or 😢) there are hundreds of emoji, ranguing from plans and animals (🐱, 🐴, 🌹) to people (👫, 💁), objects (🎥, 🎃), vehicles (🚕), food (🍔), the Sun and Moon, and more.