how to display and enter emoji in urxvt with xfce

BenCollver · 11-06-2023, 08:19 PM

Learned how to do emoji in urxvt today, and thought i'd share.

To display emoji in urxvt, configure DejaVu Sans as the second font.

Example:

Code:

urxvt -fn 'xft:Source Code Pro,xft:DejaVu Sans'

Example configuration in ~/.Xresources

Code:

URxvt.font:xft:Source Code Pro,xft:DejaVu Sans

To enter emoji, configure a keyboard shortcut.

* Applications
* Settings
* Keyboard
* Application Shortcuts
* + Add
* Command: /usr/bin/gucharmap
* Click OK
* Command: Ctrl .
* Click Close
* Press Ctrl . to open the character map
* Select DejaVu Sans
* View
* By Unicode Block
* Emoticons
* Close character map

To use the keyboard shortcut:

* Press Ctrl . to open the character map
* Double-click desired emoticon
* At "Text to copy:", drag pointer over emoticon to select it
* Press Alt-Tab to switch back to urxvt
* Click middle button to paste the emoji into urxvt

Alternatively, you can look up the Unicode codepoint and then enter that into urxvt. For example, to get the smiling face with sunglasses emoji (codepoint 1F60E):

* While holding down Ctrl-Shift, type: 1f60e
* Release Ctrl-Shift

Note that this only works in urxvt. In a GTK application, it would be Ctrl-Shift-U, release the U, then type 1f60e. 😎

MightyBaba · 11-07-2023, 03:28 PM

Interesting, thanks. I have added DejaVu Sans as a secondary font.

But it doesn't work for all emojis: For example, Jack-O-Lantern displays a square when I type the unicode code 1f383. That being said, it is good enough for the most common emojis. Who needs Jack-O-Lantern anyway?

MightyBaba · 11-07-2023, 03:51 PM

Strange that my emojis don't even work here. Now, I've got something else to solve ��
With Ctrl-Shift-U: ��

marav · 11-07-2023, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybaba

strange that my emojis don't even work here. Now, i've got something else to solve ��

🙈 🙉 🙊

MightyBaba · 11-07-2023, 09:27 PM

When I enter unicode 1f60e for the sunglasses emoji in Firefox, it shows the correct emoji in the edit box. I submit it but then it is displayed as UTF-16 "D83DDE0E" (= the sunglasses emoji in UTF-16), which shows as two question marks. However, it seems to work fine in other software and web sites. Since it is limited to LQ, I won't spend any more time on my strange issue. Sorry for the derail.

Gerard Lally · 11-07-2023, 11:40 PM

Excuse my ignorance : can urxvt display variable-width fonts like DejaVu Sans? Should it not be DejaVu Sans Mono?

BenCollver · 11-08-2023, 10:40 AM

I don't understand why, but my example doesn't work in urxvt with DejaVu Sans Mono. Instead of the 😎 smiling face with sunglasses emoji, it displays an empty box outline.

BenCollver · 12-14-2023, 10:55 AM

It has also been brought to my attention that urxvt can't display certain emojis. One example is the camera emoji, codepoint 1F4F7 ��

urxvt does give me some cryptic error messages:

Code:

urxvt: + X Error of failed request: BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length error)
urxvt: + Major opcode of failed request:  138
urxvt: + (which is an unknown extension)
urxvt: + Minor opcode of failed request:  20