A Treatise On Monochrome Emojis
Here and elsewhere I've read monochrome emojis are the absolute bees knees and the only way to view Gemini pages while maintaining one's smol integrity.
I've seen this enough that I'd like to put out a public service reminder that Alhena supports not only four different color emoji sets but also monochrome emojis via the Noto Emoji font. On MacOS, you can even choose between Noto and the system's color font for a total of six emoji options.
The nice thing about using the color emoji in Alhena is that you get support for ZWJ emojis. With font emojis, your distinguished ZWJ gray-haired avatar probably looks like a wig placed next to some hapless dude (I resemble that remark). There are a lot of these variations.
And not to pile on but flag emojis are far easier to distinguish in color.
Nevertheless, I've also considered adding an option to slap a grayscale filter on the existing color emoji sets. That way, you'd get all the detail without the garish distraction experienced by certain sensibilities. It would also be kinda fun.
I could carry on but it's always a bit embarrassing for me whenever I try to plug something. I might as well quit while I'm ahead (if that's the case - probably not).
Feb 05 · 3 months ago · 👍 gritty, 99thplace, The_Jackal, alanbato
8 Comments ↓
this is a big ask but have you considered an android version? 98% of my Gemini interaction is through my phone. most android apps are some form of java right?
🛸 bluesman [OP/mod] · Feb 05 at 19:14:
@gritty You're right about Java on Android. Unfortunately, the Swing UI library doesn't work there. If I had used JavaFX instead of Swing at the outset, it may have been doable as there are tools that use GraalVM to compile JavaFX apps to Android and even iOS. I've also read about people using Termux and VNC to run Swing apps. I can't imagine that would be a first-rate experience but who knows.
There are a couple people (at least) that use Alhena on a Linux phone. That whole idea sounds appealing to me for other reasons as well. I might look into it when my Samsung from 2020 finally kicks the (bit) bucket.
🌆 skyjake [...] · Feb 05 at 19:45:
I strongly recommend designing and implementing mobile UIs entirely separately from desktop ones. While technically it is possible to have one implementation do both (as in Lagrange), it becomes quite a tangle to maintain.
When it comes to Emoji, the best quality ones are intended to be shown in color, for sure. And for colored symbols like flags there isn't really a good alternative. However, when doing graphic design, Emoji make for a mishmash of colors and inconsistent iconography, so it's not ideal for achieving a pleasing aesthetic.
Offering alternatives is great, but be mindful to assert some design decisions, too. After all, design is about making choices for the user so they don't have to.
I would prefer to not have emoji at all (which could be done by using a font that lacks emoji), but monochrome would also do, having them displayed like ordinary text characters. It is true that flags work better with colours, although I could do without the flags. (What I would be more likely to want is being able to use fonts of arbitrary character sets and not only Unicode.)
🛸 bluesman [OP/mod] · Feb 05 at 21:55:
@skyjake It's definitely a balancing act.
@zzo38 I once (briefly) thought about a non-emoji mode with a mouse hover tooltip displaying either the emoji and/or its description. I suppose that's arguably a violation of the spec though. I'm guessing you're not a fan of this particular capsule design.
— maskugatiger.flounder.online/gemlog/maskugatreasure.gmi
I am not so sure that the non-emoji mode you describe is a violation of the spec if it is not the default mode (it doesn't make additional network accesses or spy on you or prevent the user from doing something or anything like that), although it is also not what I suggested. Merely displaying nothing, or the Unicode number in a box, should be good enough.
☕️ tenno-seremel · Feb 06 at 18:14:
TBH, I don’t know most flags, so letters inside flags (how it is with Noto Emoji) are much more understandable to me.
🛸 bluesman [OP/mod] · Feb 06 at 18:38:
@tenno-seremel That's cool. I promote the color emoji sets in Alhena but it absolutely supports monochrome font emojis (in case that wasn't clear in my original post).