2017.12.11

Quick pop-up emoji input on Linux [updated]

Christopher Peterson Blog BASH, emoji, ibus, Linux, python

<update> I’ve since rolled my own solution, which I prefer and recommend over this one. Check it out! Splatmoji. <update>

I need pop-up Linux emoji input that doesn’t require a mouse. Something like Emoji Keyboard or EmojiOne Picker require the hands to leave the keyboard and click on an emoji – this is a bunch better than jumping into a web browser and looking one up, but still. Yuck.

The solution I finally found is ibus-uniemoji. Ibus is a framework on Unix that is most generally used for input of foreign characters from a standard keyboard, e.g. pinyin, Russian, or in this case, emoji. Uniemoji uses this to provide an easy pop-up for emoji selection by name or keyword. No mouse!

Ensure the ibus daemon is running at startup, or whenever suits you:

ibus-daemon -drx

1	ibus-daemon -drx

It’s not in the Ubuntu repos as of writing, so to install:

git clone https://github.com/salty-horse/ibus-uniemoji /tmp/uniemoji
cd /tmp/uniemoji
sudo make install
ibus restart

git clone https://github.com/salty-horse/ibus-uniemoji /tmp/uniemoji

cd /tmp/uniemoji

sudo make install

ibus restart

Here is the script I wrote to toggle between normal input and emoji input:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# Given a list of possible ibus engines to cycle through as args, will cycle
# through them. If current engine is not in the list, will select the first
# from the args.

def main():
    """ main """
    import os
    import sys
    import subprocess

    engines = sys.argv[1::]
    if not engines:
        print('No engines given - nothing to do', file=sys.stderr)
        sys.exit(1)

    engine_current = subprocess.getoutput('ibus engine')

    curr_idx = engines.index(engine_current)
    next_idx = (curr_idx + 1) % len(engines)

    cmd = [
        'ibus',
        'engine',
        engines[next_idx],
    ]
    subprocess.run(cmd, check=True)
    cmd = [
        'notify-send',
        'Swtiched ibus engine to "{}"'.format(engines[next_idx]),
    ]
    subprocess.run(cmd)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# Given a list of possible ibus engines to cycle through as args, will cycle

# through them. If current engine is not in the list, will select the first

# from the args.

def main():

""" main """

import os

import sys

import subprocess

engines = sys.argv[1::]

if not engines:

print('No engines given - nothing to do', file=sys.stderr)

sys.exit(1)

engine_current = subprocess.getoutput('ibus engine')

curr_idx = engines.index(engine_current)

next_idx = (curr_idx + 1) % len(engines)

cmd = [

'ibus',

'engine',

engines[next_idx],

]

subprocess.run(cmd, check=True)

cmd = [

'notify-send',

'Swtiched ibus engine to "{}"'.format(engines[next_idx]),

]

subprocess.run(cmd)

if __name__ == '__main__':

main()

And finally to toggle between (or cycle across) an arbitrary number of ibus engines, find the engines you want by running ibus list-engine and call the script like this from some key combination (see your X or window manager config, whatever):

ibus-switch.py engine1 engine2

1	ibus-switch.py engine1 engine2

In my case, I bound this via my i3 config:

ibus-swtich.py xkb:us::eng uniemoji && bash $HOME/.xsession

1	ibus-swtich.py xkb:us::eng uniemoji && bash $HOME/.xsession

Note: you may, like me, need to re-establish your X keyboard settings after each time you switch ibus engines or else you’ll lose your compose keys, maps, etc. To ensure this I just re-run my .xsession as above.