Automatically replace plain text Emoji doesn't work with Enter

[t3chguy]

:P[ENTER] leads to :P being sent

[MightyCreak]

Two things that would make the experience better IMHO:

• The emojis are replaced on the fly (e.g. I type ":P" and as soon as I type "P" the text is replaced by 😛)
• Be able to undo the auto-replacement (e.g. I hit ":P" but for another reason than having the emoji, because I enabled the option, it gets replaced, but if I simply hit Ctrl-Z, it returns to text)

[MightyCreak]

Another possible behaviour is that the text is converted to emojis at send time. It would look like Slack's behaviour (although it's done at receive time there).

It gives a bit less control of the user, but if the regexp are well done, I don't think that's a problem. A very deterministic regexp is to only accept begin or end of lines, or spaces before and after the text-emoji. This way, if you type :smile::) it won't give anything, but if you type :smile: :) (with a space in the middle), there you'll have two smileys.

Also, being able to edit your message is going to be a huge help for the UX. You write something, didn't expect it to be converted that way, you edit your message, now it works

[t3chguy]

/me would not like that last suggestion

[kethinov]

Hangouts also does it the way that last suggestion outlines and I agree it leads to some annoying behaviors where emojis are not intended. I like the two behaviors outlined in your first post, @MightyCreak.

[MightyCreak]

Yep, I think both suggestions have it's pros and cons, I think it would be a good idea to have something close to Slack, since most of the users that would be interested in Riot would probably already know Slack (the other users will be coming from IRC where they despise emojis, so.. they're not really the target for this feature 😆 )

[lampholder]

I think we can noncontroversially make :PEnter "do the right thing" and replace :P with a 😛 if the user has that option enabled.

The other suggestions are interesting, but require more thought and are more likely to upset as many users as they please if implemented without sufficient consideration :)

[dkasak]

@lampholder What about @MightyCreak's suggestion? It sounds as if it shouldn't upset anyone since, if the user has enabled the option to replace text smileys, it's probably what he wants to happen. It also gives a way to preview what's happening before you send and a way to cancel the conversion.

[lampholder]

I think maybe what we're missing are some fundamental laws about how the composer must work.

The composer is arguably the most important part of the app, or perhaps the most personal, and small irritations will be magnified through regular use.

To my mind, it's important that the composer is:

• unobtrusive (i.e. doesn't make you type or click any more than the absolute bare minimum)
• trustworthy (i.e. always represents what you type into the timeline with 100% predictability)

I find this issue tricky because all of the options proposed risk threatening either the unobtrusiveness (ctrl-z to undo the auto-substitution in the composer that you didn't want) or the trustworthiness (usually autoreplacing :P with 😛 in the composer, but special-casing :PEnter because there's no beat in the composer usage to replace the plain text with the emoji).

[MightyCreak]

Heads up: Slack changed their composer lately and now the emojis are displayed as you write (like in Riot). So if you write :P<Space>, it'll display 😛. And <Space>:P Enter replaces the smiley as well, which honestly, is what 99% of the users that enabled emojis would expect (who would not expect to have a smiley when he'd write <Space>;) at the end of the sentence?).

(@lampholder what's the markdown syntax to write keyboard caps like you did?)