Emojis

[david63]

Please tell me why we can't use more " recent " styled smiles in the core.

You can add as many smiles as you want via the ACP

[EA117]

Please tell me why we can't use more " recent " styled smiles in the core.

You definitely can create updated Smilies images for the phpBB core. If you have some or what to create some to propose replacing the current image files, probably going straight to creating an Area51 Tracker ticket might be the right way to submit those and get feedback on what things need to be retained/changed about the proposed replacement images. i.e. Not so much of an "Idea" but more of a "just do it."

(I can recall seeing some attempt to update the Smilies images, but I think it was just to remove the white matte used around the GIF. Those were rejected due to some aesthetic concern, and I don't recall seeing any other attempts since.)



The description I was making intended to try and push "a step beyond this", by not simply updating the current Smilies images "to be pixel-based replicas of Emoji images", but to change the Smilies system itself to literally allow Emoji characters or other text sequences to be entered as "the actual replacement" for Smilies codes like :). As opposed to the current Smilies system which only allows images as the replacement.

e.g. If someone wanted :) to map to the Emoji "" character, they could enter that character -- or any other character(s) -- in the Smilies configuration as the text which will replace :). As such the "image" would end up being the same high-quality SVG used for Emoji support throughout phpBB, without "literally creating a new Smilies image." Meaning the configuration could end up looking like:

That's just what "use emoji-based smilies" had brought to mind.

[david63]

(I can recall seeing some attempt to update the Smilies images, but I think it was just to remove the white matte used around the GIF. Those were rejected due to some aesthetic concern, and I don't recall seeing any other attempts since.)

There are currently 77 smilie packs in the CDB

[EA117]

(I can recall seeing some attempt to update the Smilies images, but I think it was just to remove the white matte used around the GIF. Those were rejected due to some aesthetic concern, and I don't recall seeing any other attempts since.)

There are currently 77 smilie packs in the CDB

Thanks. Was responding to their statement of "in the core." I couldn't find it in quick searching, but just recall seeing a tracker comment with feedback that "this change makes the smiles look square" and the issue was dropped after that and never implemented. Multiple Area51 discussions related to Emojis have been pro-"let's do this for Smilies too", but nothing has ever actually been done.

Separately, I've gone ahead and put the "what if we went a step beyond this" thoughts into their own separate Ideas post, rather than continuing to try and comingle that discussion with meetdilip's stated desire to at least make updated image-based Smilies for phpBB's core.

[meetdilip]

I did a small upgrade for most of the smilies that are in core by default. I have made them available in 2 sizes.

phpBB 1.png (25.47 KiB) Viewed 374 times

phpBB 2.png (36.73 KiB) Viewed 374 times

[meetdilip]

A mock-up

I had to remove 3 smilies to make it fit there.

[EA117]

Nice looking work. Compared to what currently ships with phpBB by default, these look like the cleaner and more high-DPI-aware images one might expect to match the improvements phpBB already ships with in prosilver for the forum icons and FontAwesome usage.

On cheesy smile ( ) I'm not sure the size of your mouth truly grasps the cheesiness of the situation. My opinion, the mouth is oversize for a reason.

Any intention to address animation? Don't know if that would be considered "important" for how phpBB ships or not. At least one animated replacement proposal had been preempted in the past by pointing out that APNG support isn't widespread among browsers, and the APNG penetration still doesn't look much greener now. But if this just meant non-APNG browsers simply saw "a high quality but stationary image", my own personal opinion is "that's still worth the quality improvement." SVG would let us animate, but phpBB Smilies doesn't support SVG yet.


Just as a background note, I performed a test yesterday because I wasn't clear on whether providing an "oversize" Smilies image (e.g. 64x64 or 128x128) would actually be used in a way that improves the display on high-DPI screens.

Meaning clearly, if we were asking for the 128x128 image to display at 128x128, it would look great that way.

For the normal case in phpBB Smilies though, we're asking for that 128x128 image to be displayed at only 16x16 or similar. And so we get whatever downscaling quality the browser is willing to provide for rendering this otherwise high-quality image at only 16x16.

But when "display this 128x128 image at only 16x16" is performed on a high-DPI display, I wasn't sure whether the additional available source image resolution would actually be used. Versus whether it would still be a case of "the requested 16x16 display being stretched to fill the higher DPI screen space", similar to when the actual source image is 16x16.

At least in my testing on Chrome, it appeared that this works exactly how one would hope it works. Meaning if you give a 128x128 image, set it to display at 16x16, but then zoom or move to a high DPI display, you can end up seeing more of your original 128x128 image and not "a stretched version of the 16x16 that was requested."

I'm sure all that was obvious to someone else; it just wasn't something I knew or had knowingly observed before.

[meetdilip]

Thanks for the kind words.

At this point, I am not thinking of animated smilies. Perhaps when we have more time. Size of the file is not an issue. We can work on that ( if required ). As for the edits you have suggested, I can make changes once we are actually going to use these images.

I had some time to look at the modifications suggested

modifications.png (2.54 KiB) Viewed 313 times

[Tomba]

Please tell me why we can't use more " recent " styled smiles in the core.

The description I was making intended to try and push "a step beyond this", by not simply updating the current Smilies images "to be pixel-based replicas of Emoji images", but to change the Smilies system itself to literally allow Emoji characters or other text sequences to be entered as "the actual replacement" for Smilies codes like :). As opposed to the current Smilies system which only allows images as the replacement.

e.g. If someone wanted :) to map to the Emoji "" character, they could enter that character -- or any other character(s) -- in the Smilies configuration as the text which will replace :). As such the "image" would end up being the same high-quality SVG used for Emoji support throughout phpBB, without "literally creating a new Smilies image." Meaning the configuration could end up looking like:


smilies.png


That's just what "use emoji-based smilies" had brought to mind.

Great idea. Did you log an issue for that already?
If there isn't already, I suggest you initiate a discussion around this at area51.

[EA117]

Did you log an issue for that already?

Not as an issue in the tracker. But it was put up for discussion (with a more explicit list of proposed behaviors) on the Ideas board.

[meetdilip]

Getting ready for Santa

phpBB smiley christmas.png (17.63 KiB) Viewed 116 times

[battye]

Those look great meetdilip!

[meetdilip]

Thank you @battye

[3Di]

I made my own set of smilies.pak (128x128 .png rendered as 20x20) based on Emojis.