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Xmoji – plain X11 emoji keyboard

Xmoji is a simple emoji keyboard for X11 designed to work without relying on any toolkit or input method. It doesn't use a toolkit itself and instead renders its GUI using XRender requests.

Xmoji in fvwm3

This the successor of my qXmoji tool which used Qt for its GUI. It's already ahead feature wise, and the few minor features still missing are on the roadmap to version 1.0.

Packaging status

Features

  • Left-clicking an emoji sends it to whatever X11 application currently has the keyboard focus using faked key press events. There are settings to automatically append a zero-width space and for ZWJ sequences to prepend another ZWJ, which might help some receiving X clients to get their display correct.
  • Middle-clicking an emoji selects it, so it can be transferred using the X11 "primary selection" mechanism (typically middle-click again where you want to insert it).
  • Emojis are displayed in tabs with one tab per main group as suggested in Unicode files.
  • Emojis with skin-tone variants are grouped again, only the neutral version is shown and right-clicking it shows a fly-out style menu with all available versions.
  • The search tab allows to find emojis by their name.
  • The history tab shows the most recently used emojis and is automatically persisted.

Commandline arguments

Xmoji uses the traditional commandline syntax of X11 clients: Options start with a single dash (-), can have more than one character and can't be combined into a single option.

  • -cfg <file>: Override the runtime configuration file. Note that an attempt is made to create this file and all directories as necessary. Default: See the section about runtime configuration.
  • -class <class>: Override the class name. This is used for the WM_CLASS window property and for matching Xresources. Default: Xmoji.
  • -f: Run in foreground. If not given, Xmoji detaches from the terminal after successful startup.
  • -name <name>: Override the instance name. This is used for the WM_CLASS window property, for the default configuration file name, for matching Xresources and for checking for a running instance in "single instance mode". Default: The value of the RESOURCE_NAME environment variable, or the base name of the executable, which should be xmoji.
  • -v: Enable verbose output. You also need -f if you want to see messages after startup.
  • -vv: Enable very verbose output, which includes debugging messages. When Xmoji is built with the TRACE option, this also prints every single X11 request. You also need -f if you want to see messages after startup.
  • -<name> <value>: Override an Xresource value, where <name> is the instance name of the last component.

Xresources

Everything concerning appearance and rendering is configured in the traditional X11 way, using X resources. Xmoji only looks for them on the root window of the running X session, so make sure you upload them with the xrdb tool.

The application class defaults to Xmoji, the instance name defaults to the name of the executable (xmoji), both can be overridden on the commandline. Most resources can also be overridden on the commandline by giving the instance name of their last component, so e.g. running xmoji -emojiFont emoji-24 will set the emoji font to that font.

Fonts

Fonts are given as search patterns for fontconfig, multiple patterns can be given separated by commas, for example Noto Sans-14:bold,sans-14. Fonts are global, so can't be scoped to individual widgets.

  • font (class Font): The font for display of normal text. Default: sans.
  • tooltipFont (class Font): The font for display of tooltips. Default: sans.
  • emojiFont (class EmojiFont): The font for display of emojis. Default: emoji.

Setting the Font resource (the class) also sets what Xmoji considers the "system default font", which is used for the default font size for all fonts that don't have an explicit size specified. This is for example relevant for scaling of the emoji font offered in runtime settings.

Generic rendering options

  • backingStore (no class): Use an offscreen pixmap for window contents and contents of scrollable areas. Disable this to save X server memory at the cost of visible flicker. Default: 1.
  • dpi (no class): Use this resolution for calculating font sizes that are not given in pixels. Default: obtained from the primary screen.
  • scrollBarWidth (no class): Width in pixels for scroll bars. Default: 10.
  • scrollBarMinHeight (no class): Minimum height in pixels for scroll bars. Default: 16.
  • tooltipDelay (no class): Delay in milliseconds before a tooltip is displayed, 0 disables display of tooltips. Default: 1500, Max: 10000.

Colors

Colors can be given in these formats:

  • A well-known X11 color name
  • RGB(A) values in simple hex notation: #rgb, #rrggbb, #rrrgggbbb, #rrrrggggbbbb, #rgba, #rrggbbaa, #rrrrggggbbbbaaaa.
  • RGB(A) values in X11 notation rgb:<r>/<g>/<b>/rgba:<r>/<g>/<b>/<a>, where each component can have 1 to 4 hex digits.
  • RGB(A) values in CSS notation rgb(<r>,<g>,<b>)/rgba(<r>,<g>,<b>,<a>), where each component is a decimal number between 0 and 255. The rgb prefix can also be omitted.

Colors can be scoped to individual widgets by their class and instance names. The following colors are available:

  • foreground (class Foreground): Normal foreground color. Default: black.
  • background (class Background): Normal background color. Default: gray.
  • aboveForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for elemets appearing above normal. Default: black.
  • aboveBackground (class Background): Background color for elements appearing above normal. Default: light gray.
  • belowForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for elements appearing below normal. Default: black.
  • belowBackground (class Background): Background color for elements appearing below normal. Default: dark gray.
  • lowestForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for elements appearing lowest. Default: black.
  • lowestBackground (class Background): Background color for elements appearing lowest. Default: web gray.
  • activeForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for active elements. Default: dark slate gray.
  • activeBackground (class Background): Background color for active elements. Default: light blue.
  • disabledForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for disabled elements. Default: dim gray.
  • disabledBackground (class Background): Background color for disabled elements. Default: silver.
  • selectedForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for selected elements. Default: light blue.
  • selectedBackground (class Background): Background color for selected elements. Default: medium blue.
  • tooltipForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for tooltips. Default: black.
  • tooltipBackground (class Background): Background color for tooltips. Default: navajo white.
  • linkForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for hyperlinks. Default: dark blue.
  • hoverForeground (class Foreground): Foreground color for hovered items, used with hyperlinks. Default: blue.
  • border (class Border): Color for borders. Default: dark gray.
  • tooltipBorder (class Border): Color for the border of tooltips. Default: black.

Example

The following X resources configure a slightly smaller default font (for normal text and tooltips by specifying the class name), a different emoji font, a slightly larger scroll bar, a dark color scheme and a shorter delay before displaying emoji names (by scoping the value only to EmojiButton):

Xmoji*Font: sans-10
Xmoji*emojiFont: Twitter Color Emoji
Xmoji*Foreground: #c8c6c5
Xmoji*Background: #211f1d
Xmoji*Border: #191210
Xmoji*belowBackground: #191210
Xmoji*lowestBackground: #120f0d
Xmoji*aboveBackground: #302a28
Xmoji*activeBackground: #403830
Xmoji*disabledForeground: #777777
Xmoji*selectedForeground: black
Xmoji*selectedBackground: #77ddff
Xmoji*tooltipForeground: light cyan
Xmoji*tooltipBackground: dark slate gray
Xmoji*linkForeground: dodger blue
Xmoji*hoverForeground: cyan
Xmoji*tooltipBorder: light sea green
Xmoji*scrollBarWidth: 12
Xmoji*scrollBarMinHeight: 25
Xmoji*EmojiButton.tooltipDelay: 500

Runtime configuration

Runtime configuration is stored in a configuration file. This file is automatically monitored for external changes.

By default, Xmoji will use a configuration file in these places:

  • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/<name>.cfg, if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set.
  • ${HOME}/.config/<name>.cfg, if HOME is set.
  • ~/.config/<name>.cfg, with ~ refering to the home directory obtained from the passwd database.

The default <name> of the configuration file is based on the instance name, see also the -name commandline option. If the instance name is not xmoji, xmoji- is automatically prepended to avoid accidental name clashes with other configuration files. So if you'd e.g. run xmoji -name foobar, it will use a file named xmoji-foobar.cfg.

The full path of the configuration file can be overridden from the command line with -cfg, e.g.

xmoji -cfg /tmp/xmoji.cfg

CAUTION: Xmoji will attempt to create missing directories for storing its runtime configuration.

The file stores everything available in the Settings dialog, which you can access by right-clicking in the window, outside of an Emoji with a fly-out. The settings are described in the dialog using tooltips.

Additionally, the history of recently used emojis is also stored in the configuration file.

Building

To obtain the source from git, make sure to include submodules, e.g. with the --recurse-submodules option to git clone. Release tarballs will include everything needed for building.

Dependencies:

  • A C compiler understanding GNU commandline options and the C11 standard (GNU GCC and LLVM clang work fine)
  • GNU make
  • fontconfig
  • freetype ( >= 2.12 when SVG support is enabled, see below )
  • harfbuzz
  • libpng ( >= 1.6 )
  • libxcb ( >= 1.14 ), libxcb-cursor, libxcb-image, libxcb-xkb and libxcb-xtest
  • xkbcommon and xkbcommon-x11

For example, on a Debian or Ubuntu system, you would install these packages:

libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype-dev libharfbuzz-dev libxcb-cursor-dev
libxcb-image0-dev libxcb-xkb-dev libxcb-xtest0-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev

To build and install Xmoji, you can simply type

make
make install

If your default make utility is not GNU make (like e.g. on a BSD system), install GNU make first and type gmake instead of make.

Build options

Options can be given as variables in each make invocation, e.g. like this:

make FOO=yes
make FOO=yes install

Alternatively, they can be saved and are then used automatically, like this:

make FOO=on config
make
make install

The following build options are available:

  • TRACE (bool): Enables tracing of all X11 requests. When running with -vv, this prints all requests to stderr. Also, when an error occurs, the code and location of the request that caused it is printed. For debugging only. Default: off.

  • BUNDLED_FREETYPE (bool): Build freetype2 and link it statically. For this to work, download a freetype tarball and place it in ftbundle/ first. Use this when the installed freetype on your system doesn't match the requirements, e.g. misses PNG support. Default: off.

  • BUNDLED_POSER (bool): Uses the bundled poser lib and links it statically. When disabled, poser must be installed and will be linked as a shared library. Default: on.

  • WITH_NLS (bool): Support loading translations for the current locale (from LC_MESSAGES) at runtime and build/install the existing translation files. See TRANSLATE for how to add new translations. Default: on.

  • WITH_SVG (bool): Enable support for fonts with SVG glyphs. When enabled, freetype >= 2.12 is required and the bundled nanosvg is built for rasterizing the SVG glyphs. Default: on.

  • WITH_KQUEUE (bool): Use kqueue (available on BSD systems) for watching the configuration file instead of periodically calling stat(). Default: on when kqueue is detected, off otherwise.

  • WITH_INOTIFY (bool): Use inotify (available on Linux) for watching the configuration file instead of periodically calling stat(). Default: on when inotify is detected, off otherwise.

Enabling both WITH_KQUEUE and WITH_INOTIFY at the same time is an error. Even when one of them is enabled, Xmoji will try to detect whether the configuration file is stored on NFS and in that case silently fall back to periodically calling stat() on it.