Emoji search function

[hjarnek]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
There are lots of emojis today, most of which I have no clue where they are in the list. An emoji search function like the one in GBoard would be very useful to more easily find the emoji you're looking for, and also see alternatives based on your search term.

Describe the solution you'd like
An emoji search bar that sits somewhere when you press the emoji button.

Use case
See above.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Endless scrolling???

[BlackyHawky]

@hjarnek I think you can close this issue as it has already been answered here: #134

[Helium314]

@hjarnek is using an emoji dictionary an acceptable alternative to the search bar?

The search bar would have the advantage of being able to work on the full emoji texts or short names provided in the unicode list.
But it's much more work to implement, especially considering how the emoji keyboard works internally, and certainly very low priority for me.

[adarsh1001]

@Helium314 so with the emoji dictionary (always enabled as part of multilingual suggestions I assume), basically the matching emojis would show up in the word suggestion strip? Like if I normally type "pizza" in a text field, one of the word suggestions would be pizza emoji? I think that would work fine.

[Helium314]

Like if I normally type "pizza" in a text field, one of the word suggestions would be pizza emoji?

I just tried, and when using the English emoji dictionary this indeed happens.

(I have the idea of adding/enabling the emoji dictionaries by default, but the currently things work only for a single app-internal dictionary per language)

[meichthys]

One thing I have noticed is if I have the google Swype lib loaded from here: https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/blob/master/app%2Fsrc%2Fmain%2FjniLibs%2Farm64-v8a%2Flibjni_latinimegoogle.so
Then the suggestions do show emoji quite well, otherwise it is very hit or miss.

[GameOverFlowChart]

Here is an image about how I expect this to look like:
#348 (comment)

[noodlejetski]

I really like the way it works in AnySoftKeyboard (also open source) - typing a search key after a colon lists all matching emoji in the suggestion bar, so you can just type :laugh or :pumpkin or :cat or whatever in the same text field you're writing your message in, without having to open a separate menu or pressing any extra buttons. no emoji is actually pasted until you explicitly pick it from the suggestions.

[maruuk]

@noodlejetski It is possible and works similarly to AnySoftKeyboard. Just download the emoji dictionary for your language. If there is no dictionary, you can still get emojis in the suggestion bar, but you need to add them to the dictionary first. It looks like this

[noodlejetski]

@Uranusek it looks like the dictionaty method suggest emoji whenever you type a word that matches its description, doesn't it? meanwhile the way ASK implements it, emoji gets out of the way until you explicitly write the symbol telling the keyboard that you're searching for one.

[maruuk]

Yes. The solution in AnySoftKeyboard may be better for more emoji with the same name. HeliBoard then suggests only emoticons, not text.

[Handrail9]

I'd like to add that the current dictionary method is very poor for accessibility. A lot of emojis just do not show up when searching for them through the dictionary, and seem to only have one or two contexts in which they will be recommended. Attaching some examples