Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

whatmoji.com

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

#52

It still doesn't really tell you what it means, just the name/annotation.

They can mean different things based on what set of renderings you're using for the same emoji... good writeup here https://eev.ee/blog/2016/04/12/apple-did-not-invent-emoji/

Re: Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

#53
Reading this article sent me on a whirlwind of Wikipediaing and Googling...just like Unicode itself is vastly complicated, so is the thought and design behind emojis, which have their own technical subcommittee [0], currently chaired by Apple and Google employees.

One of the best articles I came across is from Huffington Post, before the inclusion of multi-colored faces in 2015:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_553...

I knew that trying to design universally readable iconography is an essentially impossible task in itself, but the article brings up a lot of other interesting issues, such as the worry that Apple might take it upon themselves to revamp their emojis which were designed before the "flat" days:

> By comparison, Apple’s iconic emoji are horribly out of fashion. Its icons have shadows, depth and a three-dimensional look that’s a holdover from the Steve Jobs era of skeuomorphic design. Flat illustration free of texture or highlights is now de rigeur. Apple has already abandoned the faux-wood paneling and leather elsewhere in its software, and its emoji could change at any time — potentially a rude shock for those who’ve come to identify with the brand’s symbols. “I kind of hope they don’t [change it],” said Van Lancker.

Even the HTML of the article itself contains interesting insights, especially about web production and the challenges of digital preservation. I thought at first that, in a decade, the opening paragraph might completely lose its meaning...but then I opened up my web inspector:

http://imgur.com/YUVtwPe

[0] http://unicode.org/emoji/

Re: Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

#55
post #20

It seems to permanently (?) store all of the input text. Why? http://whatmoji.com/?i=da510f5876a15885fa89de8abe731d3c EDIT: OK, so it stores only the emojis. The actual text is removed.

Yes, it stores the list of emojis so that you can link to it. The text is never stored. Are you concerned this might be a privacy issue? I could change it to only store searches on demand.

That was my concern at first, but I don't think it's an issue if it doesn't store the entire text.

Re: Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

#58
post #45
post #32

I feel like http://emojipedia.org/ is a better website with more information. I've been regularly using it since Emoji have become a thing. It gives more context about the meaning of symbols, is easier to search the other way, and also shows how the image appears on various different platforms.

Emojipedia doesn't say anything about alternative meanings for the peach or eggplant emojis. I need something for more cultural meanings, too.

Neither does whatmoji, though.

Taco: http://whatmoji.com/?i=21c542c341eb67e1cb7a4ba4a21052ff

Eggplant: http://whatmoji.com/?i=376bf089b6f3e4f4eb7e9e13c4ce1cb2

peach: http://whatmoji.com/?i=1633b26bb2deb796dab3660132424995

Re: Show HN: I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

#60
post #25

Quick tip if you are on OS X: Pressing ctrl+command+space pops up an emoji bank so you can enter them in any text field. Now you don't have to hunt for emojis to put in the website. Love the website btw!

I tend to copy and paste from Emacs, so I can search for emoji and other Unicode characters by name with C-x 8 RET.

you can also autocomplete emojis in emacs

https://github.com/syohex/emacs-ac-emoji https://github.com/dunn/company-emoji

and display them as well

https://github.com/iqbalansari/emacs-emojify

Post reply on HN